Mists of Yesterday
by LuvEwan
Summary: As Anakin Skywalker watches his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, deteriorate, he begins to lose faith in the Order that gave him a home. And Obi-Wan loses faith in everything. COMPLETE.
1. Default Chapter

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Mists of Yesterday

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A Short Story by LuvEwan

-This is dedicated to my faithful readers. Shiela, Cas, PK, Shaindl, Froggy, CYN, Wild Huntress, Phoenix_Reborn, rundownstars, dianethx, and everyone else, you know who you are. Thank you so much for your constant support of my little fics. It means the world to me. --

On the fateful journey of a Master and Apprentice, resolve must be shiftless and doubt nonexistent. But, as Anakin Skywalker watches his mentor, Obi-Wan Kenobi, deteriorate, he begins to lose faith in the Order that gave him a home. 

And Obi-Wan begins to lose faith in everything. 

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I've never looked back

As a matter of fact.

-Shania Twain

Anakin lay in his bed, hands folded on his stomach, staring at the slick, steel ceiling. The surface was reflective, but the images mirrored were blurred and twisted. 

He sighed, closing his weary eyes and turning onto his side. The room was swathed in the dark palate of midnight: black pooled in every nook, the moon's yellow glow glinting off the mechanical bits scattered across his room. 

A shiver rushed through the Padawan suddenly.

How he hated the time when the sun disappeared behind an orange and saffron stained horizon, stretching shadow across the great city-planet. It took long for Coruscant to settle down to slumber…

But it always did, eventually. And then Anakin would still try to make the daytime linger, by tinkering with his various projects, even pulling out his texts to avoid the nightmares sleep brought. It was his Master who pulled the veil of night, who stood in the boy's doorway, a form bathed in soft light, a small smile touching his lips. 

Obi-Wan was, to Anakin's chagrin, fully aware of the youth's dread. He would sit at the edge of the mattress, a warm wealth of understanding harbored in sea-washed eyes, and assure his apprentice that the phantoms that ghosted past his mind in dreams could never truly touch him. 

Anakin would nod, though never entirely assuaged by the man's words, even after nearly a decade of these quiet talks. Over the years, as the student matured, they became short exchanges, less intimate. Sometimes, it was only a quick, supportive pulse through the Force…

Lately, it was nothing at all . 

Obi-Wan Kenobi, as Skywalker had heard muttered by varying sorts in the spanning Temple, was an enigma. Wrapped in natural grace and enviable beauty, he was the epitome of a Jedi Knight. Strong, determined, fiercely intelligent, a man renowned for his precision and skill that defeated a Sith, in what was fast becoming a legendary battle. But Obi-Wan walked the Universe seemingly without notice of his astounding qualities. His grin was always a bit roguish---but sweet nevertheless. He could possess the stern temperament of a grizzled ship captain, if it was his wont---and crack a terribly tasteless joke in the same heartbeat.

Obi-Wan Kenobi held the power of a thousand warriors, yet could break down in miserable tears for those who suffered an incurable injustice. 

It was the way of his Master, Anakin mused, pride stirring within him.

A coil roil overtook his belly. _Until recently._ He rested his head on the heel of his hand, looking to the fresh past with a troubled expression.

There was nothing extremely obvious that displayed the transformation in Obi-Wan, only subtle changes hinted that something was amiss.

A vacant gloss would coat his gaze and it would take a firm shake to rouse him from the faint daze. Breakfast would be nearly cooled by the time the Knight arrived at the meal table, his ginger hair mussed and dark smudges ringing his eyes, a stiffness to once-fluid movements.

The food would sit, untouched, save for the absent, uninterested poke of a fork.

Sparring wasn't helpful to Anakin, since his opponent was mostly detached, fumbling in moments of the fight's climax. The latest match ended with a nasty burn scorched into the older Jedi's side. 

Insomnia draped over the apartment like a suffocating shroud after twilight. The Padawan could sense his Master's unrest, night after pitiful night. He wandered the space like a lost, bewildered spirit. 

The odd behavior was starting to worry Anakin. In this huge place, where jealousy followed him like a murky cloud, Obi-Wan was the light, unconditional and eternally welcoming. 

Except for these past few days. When the man glanced at him, he felt wisps of unfamiliar emotion. Sorrow, intense exhaustion…bright, searing pain. Then, Obi-Wan would catch notice of Anakin's attentions, and conceal it all under the sweep of red-gold lashes. 

But he couldn't banish the memories from his protégé's mind.

There was a crash outside his room, and Anakin was shoved abruptly from his deliberations, fear spiking in his veins.

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Master.

Obi-Wan stared at his trembling hand, covered in dark burgundy, puzzled by the tawny shards imbedded in his skin. 

He stood in the kitchen, clad in loose-fitting sleep pants. The delicate cup was in shatters, strewn around his feet. Droplets of hot tea dribbled down his bare chest. His eyes wandered to the ground. 

Blood was dripping onto his toes.

The Knight's focus returned to his hand. The fingers looked as colorless as ivory beneath warm, flowing red, and suffered weak tremors. 

"Master?" Anakin entered the main room at a jog. 

Obi-Wan appeared oblivious to the fretful call. 

Anakin saw the bloody mess and sprinted to his companion's side. "Master!" He gasped, taking in the broken dishware with wide, care-worn eyes. 

Obi-Wan emerged somewhat from the hazed stupor, lifting his head, auburn mane clinging to it like a silken cap, save a single strand that dangled in his vision. 

Anakin had never seen his eyes glazed in such utter confusion. He reached out and drew the short piece of hair behind his teacher's ear. 

Obi-Wan's mouth quivered, as if on the brink of speaking, but then barely imperfect teeth captured his bottom lip, in a childish gesture.

It would have been endearing, had it not been in the midst of this jarring scene.

"Master…are you okay?" The apprentice asked tentatively.

Obi-Wan was peering into the distance, a far-away gleam in his gaze. 

Icy anxiety seized Anakin's heart. He grasped Obi-Wan's upper arm. "Master? Master, answer me!"

Obi-Wan brought his hand higher, turning it to discover more tiny glass splinters piercing his flesh. 

A sharp sound was freed from Anakin as he pulled the Master through the main room into the lavatory, panting out of shock rather than exertion. Obi-Wan followed dumbly, though his steps were slower and clumsy, like his mind had been stifled.

Anakin switched on the lighting, then took the hand in his with tender caution. Slivers poked into it everywhere, thin snakes of blood streaming from each wound. 

There was a well-buried curse muttered under his breath. 

Obi-Wan stood silently, wiping at the tea sprayed across his midsection, but succeeded in only spreading it further. The artificial illumination cascaded sickly down his body, causing pallor already wan to go a shade whiter. Luminous eyes looked painfully brilliant among the pale ambience of his face. 

Anakin huffed. "There're so many. There have to be dozens." He said grimly, mostly to himself. He looked up at the older man. "We should go to the healers, Master."

Obi-Wan stared blankly ahead.

Anakin shook him. "Master?"

Abruptly, the Jedi shuddered, shoulders straightening. He craned his neck to gaze at his Padawan. "Anakin?" He asked, accent nearly lyrical in its softness. Then, the pain of the glass seemed to dawn on Obi-Wan, he gaped down at his bleeding hand, forehead crinkled. "What…?"

The young man swallowed hard. It had never been his place to explain things to his Master. There were never lapses in Obi-Wan's sense of responsibility. Fulfillment of duty was the virtue he seemed to value above all others. That Obi-Wan was standing in the lavatory in the middle of the night, watching his hand purged of blood, a baffled, tired air to his countenance…

Anakin just didn't understand. "Master, a teacup broke, broke into a million pieces all over the kitchen floor." He searched the familiar visage for realization, was startled when he found none. "Don't you remember?"

A moment of stillness passed, pregnant with trepidation that traveled through the Force in disturbing waves. 

Finally, Obi-Wan smiled with a nod. "Of course, Padawan. I think I just…" He cleared his throat behind a fist. "I think my thoughts just fuddled for a bit." He squeezed Anakin's arm with the clean hand. "I'm fine."

Anakin managed a smile in return. "But you're---"

Irritation dimmed those jeweled eyes ever so slightly. "I'm fine, Padawan." He flexed his injured fingers to support the declaration.

Anakin quelled a wince, for surely the action had been agony to the countless lacerations. "Are you positive? The healers---"

"Are a group of maniacs, Ani." He chuckled, but the humor felt forced. "You go in to ask for a bandage, they sink their teeth into you and you end up undergoing a complete physical."

Anakin smirked despite his own agitation. 

Obi-Wan grinned. "Now, it's quite late, and I'm in no mood to have Bant prod me with every cold instrument she can find." He cracked his wrist, the discomfort seeping momentarily through his cheery mask. "Besides, you need your sleep. Tomorrow is another day, and there'll be plenty to be done."

The apprentice nodded, sandy hair darker in the bright room. "You'll tell me if you need help?" He asked.

Obi-Wan smiled again, very fine lines streaking from his eyes, lines etched by happier times, times of laughter. "You can count on it."

Hesitantly, taking a last glance at the bleeding hand and tea-splashed chest, Anakin returned to his room.

As he walked, he felt his Master give a discreet tightening to his mental shields. 

Obi-Wan looked down at his cut palms. 

He didn't remember padding into the kitchen, or even the burst of glass. It was disorienting, coming into awareness in the lavatory, his Padawan hovering over him, feeling so closed in…

Fighting a sudden wave of dizziness, Obi-Wan made his way to the couch, sealing his eyes against the glare of light as he passed the artificial strip mounted to the ceiling. 

He sunk gratefully to the cushions, resting his head. 

Obi-Wan wished the spinning would stop, would allow him a moment's respite. It was difficult to maintain such complete, flawless armor around his thoughts. Anakin was more powerful than respectful. He wouldn't leave his Master to his privacy. 

Anakin had to know everything. The Padawan could have his secrets, but Obi-Wan was expected to share every shred of his soul, or suffer the hurt expression that transformed the boy's strangely mature features.

That sent a dark shaft across Anakin's face, as the Force roiled in reaction to his frustration.

It pained Obi-Wan to endure the sight. Yet, after years of schooling himself, he had learned to look upon his apprentice's upset face with stern resolve.

He was a young Master, yes. But he was a Master.

Even when the voices whispered to him that he wasn't.

Obi-Wan sighed, sealing weary cerulean eyes, and laying his damaged hand gingerly against his chest. 

The voices were growing louder, crowding his thoughts, dark wisps that flitted across his mind's vast planes. They spoke words of discouragement, of sorrow…of hate.

He had been in his quarters, reveling in a rare, shallow slumber, when their sour litany began again.

And when their taunts took hold, Obi-Wan could think of nothing else.

He must have journeyed to the kitchen in some sort of befuddled sleep walk, unaware that his body was traveling, as he fought the floating curses and sharp, cruel messages.

Anakin could always awaken him, eventually. 

But voices echoed. Long after they were silenced.

And they were never silenced forever. 

Obi-Wan gripped the pillow suddenly, as he remembered the latest slurries. 

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No good you're no good not for anybody you might as well slit your sorry wrists you no good---

Then came the truly disturbing insult, grinding in his mind, agony blossoming throughout him.

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It's a damn shame 

It's a damn shame your master's around to see this to see what a nothing you are to see how no good you are 

No wonder he hides from you.

Anakin slipped under the covers, weariness clouding in his head.

But the mattress seemed unyielding as stone now. His young back began to ache against it, and the apprentice rolled to his side, forcing his eyes to close.

Anger spiked like smoldering fire inside him. His fingers curled to taut fists. _He won't tell me what's wrong. He doesn't think I'm worthy of helping him._

He inhaled sharply. _Like always._

Anakin's thoughts began to wander back to those first, early days. When he was a child, witnessing the historic events of the Battle of Naboo with Qui-Gon's hand resting on his small shoulder. Anakin could remember smiling at the towering Master's affection gesture, only to catch Obi-Wan's disapproving (disgusted?) look.

And then, on the landing pad, clutching to Artoo, listening as Qui-Gon's Padawan whispered vehemently of the Jedi Council's doubts concerning a mere slave boy.

The pain and utter heartbreak beating in sea-painted eyes, the glare of the funeral pyre casting shadow on Obi-Wan's face. _"You will be a Jedi. I promise."_

His dulcet voice had been bare and small and solemn, as if the new Knight had been drained of his strength…

As if, Anakin thought, he had been robbed of his dreams.

After all, Obi-Wan was but a Padawan himself when he accepted the burden of an untrained, apparently hazardous apprentice. The oath had not been borne of a care for Anakin.

Obi-Wan Kenobi loved his Master dearly, would have sacrificed his very life if it would have spared Qui-Gon from the cruel, untimely demise he suffered.

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Maybe Master thinks he HAS given away his life.

Moisture started in sealed eyes, and Anakin scrubbed them away feverishly. He flopped onto his stomach. 

The vision of Obi-Wan, standing on the cold tile, blood dripping from his hand, stabbed through Anakin. The boy sighed with a half-hearted sniffle. _But I love him._

Other memories began to flood his consciousness. His Master smoothing a bandage gently over a scrape marring Anakin's tiny knee, then pressing a feather-light kiss to the wound, earning a smile from the tearful boy. His Master patiently waiting for Anakin to complete the intricate nineteenth kata, Anakin actually able to feel the excitement and pride pulsing in the young teacher. His Master, cheeks flushed bright red, as he tried to pile frosting over the charred birthday cake while Anakin fell to the floor in hysterical laughter.

Obi-Wan sitting behind a closed bedroom door, crying silently, certain his Padawan could not hear his misery.

But Anakin was gifted, as the Council often said. Warned. 

He heard ever repressed sob, heard it tearing his ears, heard it throbbing in his mind, even when his Master secured his thick walls around his pain.

A pang went to Anakin's chest. Too many times he listened to his Master's agony.

For all their quarrels and polar differences, Anakin still hated to witness Obi-Wan in his private anguish, refusing to allow anyone to relieve it. 

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He needs me…In some ways, I know much more than he does.

Anakin slipped slowly to sleep.

__

He needs me more than I need him.

Morning bled through the apartment drapes, spilling liquid warmth on his cheek.

Anakin came awake at once. He never liked to linger in grogginess. His slumber wasn't so comforting that he wanted to grasp to its dying fringes.

He stood, wrapping himself in his dark robe, and padded down the hallway.

When he was at the edge, he looked into the living area, and shook his head, sad worry nearly overwhelming him. 

"Master." He said softly, going to Obi-Wan's side.

The man was curled tightly in on himself, his cut hand cradled to his naked chest, where blood was drying in little patches.

Anakin moved with quiet swiftness to the fresher. He collected a washcloth, tweezers, and small bowl of lukewarm water.

Then he pulled a wooden chair to the couch.

Gingerly, he took the hand in his.

Obi-Wan's breath came in hitches.

Anakin despaired. He was whimpering like an injured child. "It's alright, Master." He soothed, momentarily stroking damp hair of ginger, the Force tingling in his fingertips. "Just rest. Let me help you."

The older Jedi calmed instantly, though thin streams of tears ran down his cheeks.

Anakin watched them glisten a moment. He realized something was seriously wrong with his mentor.

Obi-Wan was crying in front of him.

Nerves rattled, he brushed the moisture away. "Don't do that, Master." Anakin urged. _You're scaring me._

He took the tweezers in his grip, galvanizing hands that were too shaky to perform such precise and delicate work. 

Taking a mouthful of air, Anakin began to pick the tiny shards from Obi-Wan's soft flesh.

When the last bloodied splinter was plucked, he bathed the red hand, massaging the fingers and palm tenderly, sending mild healing waves. 

But Obi-Wan's tears only fell faster.

Afternoon edged toward Coruscant, warm orange light spilling on the countless buildings, reflecting off the shining finishes of cloud cars.

Anakin felt the heat on his exposed neck and sat up, rubbing his eyes. His muscles were cramped, aching at the base of his arms especially.

He looked down at his Master, still asleep, head nestled in the corner of the couch. A few hours had passed, he wagered…

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And I fell asleep. What a great Padawan.

The boy stood. Bones popped at the action, and he thought maybe more time had passed than he first assumed. 

His Master enjoyed rest, always combating the dark circles that ringed his eyes, the black smudges Anakin saw as he studied the man. 

"Master." He said again, in the same worried tone he'd adopted as of late. Somehow, lying on the worn cushions, sweat glistening on his forehead, Obi-Wan appeared very young and pathetic.

__

No---Not pathetic. He corrected himself hastily, heart beating a bit faster. _I don't think that about him. He just looks sick._ Anakin bit down on his lip. _That's what I meant._

He glanced around the apartment, dead in the prime of day, and felt a shiver creep up his spine. 

"Master?" Anakin said, voice as near to timid as he could muster. He touched a cool, pale arm. "Master, wake up now. It's late." 

The bearded face remained unaffected. Lips were parted, eyelids hiding jeweled brilliance. His ginger hair was wilted, framing his slumbering countenance.

"It's really late." Anakin persisted, and moved his hand to squeeze Obi-Wan's shoulder lightly.

Nothing. 

The Padawan wanted to scream in frustration, his fingers began to curl. _He's only tired from his hand. He lost a lot of blood._ He reasoned, forcing himself to calm. 

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I'm just gonna go on like everything's normal. 

Because everything IS normal.

"I'm getting a shower, Master." He said.

And looked away from the still figure, with dried tracks of tears on his cheeks, and tiny wounds littering his hand.

Anakin stepped under the steaming spray of the showerhead and felt himself relax a bit.

He dipped his head back. The water soaked his hair and ran down the curve of his back. He began to unravel his braid habitually…

And had to swallow hard.

Sometimes, it was difficult to see this ritual through. All too often he tired of re-plaiting the long, sandy strands. Once in a while, Anakin thought of the Padawan symbol as shackles, binding him to a life he was outgrowing.

I could be a Knight already.

It wasn't a new revelation. He'd been aware of it for some time now. He would watch the Knights spar, their bodies twisting in graceful kata, and feel a burn of envy.

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I should be promoted. I've surpassed most Jedi anyway.

But then came the bitter taste in his throat. _Too bad Master doesn't think so._

He took the soap in his hands, working up a lather and tried to forget these frequent musings.

__

He'll see it soon.

Someone like him probably wants to be alone.

Anakin sensed Obi-Wan's weariness, his flash of a frown, a well-repressed sigh of disapproval. Every day.

__

It'd be so much easier for him to be alone.

Then maybe he wouldn't get like this again.

"Oh Sith." He muttered. _Just don't think about it, Ani._

He came to consciousness gradually, his eyelids so heavy they seemed to burn the red-threaded irises beneath. 

Obi-Wan shifted. 

The small of his back ached, but the weakness in his body prevented him from turning onto his stomach. So he lay there, the pain beating…everywhere.

He opened his eyes to the bright apartment and had to close them at once, a whimper suppressed behind sealed lips. The light felt like an orange inferno, blinding him and blazing his damp skin. 

He began to burrow down into the comfort of oblivion once more.

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Here.

A foreign voice fluttered through his groggy mind, strangely soothing, pulling him in…

__

He's here.

And then Obi-Wan was compelled to open his eyes again.

There, on the once-vacant chair beside the couch, sat his Master.

Qui-Gon Jinn was staring at him, midnight blue eyes striking, albeit faded. A stalwart figure of dignity, broad shouldered and undeniably powerful. He wore the soft, threadbare tunics of a Jedi. Long hair both chestnut and slate draped down to brush against his chest. 

Obi-Wan sat up, blinking away tears. The man's midsection was solid…no gaping, charred hole, no ash. 

"M-Master." He gasped, scarcely believing, but at the same time, beyond doubt. His heart swelled. "Y-Y-You're here."

Qui-Gon just looked at his former apprentice.

Moisture rolled down unshaven cheeks. "You're here." He grinned, and reached for his beloved teacher, forgetting his weariness, letting the bliss of this impossible reunion fill him.

But his arms met air, as the form of his dearest friend dissipated, shimmering for an instant before melding with the atmosphere.

He was gone.

Obi-Wan sat on his knees, thoughts as paralyzed as his body. He was panting, eyes searching the room frantically, a half-smile lingering on his face, as though oblivious to the cruel disappearance. 

He became aware of the faint din of running water in the background. He flinched, straining to hear his mentor's footsteps.

__

Maybe he's hiding. Obi-Wan rationalized, rising to his feet, not registering the quivering of his knees. _Playing a game with me…_

He edged slowly into the hallway. _Can't let Master hear me. _Capturing impulsive laughter with clenched teeth, Obi-Wan padded through the door to his own room-where Qui-Gon once lived.

The quarters were still, the sun glowing through the plain curtains, casting a soft incandescence on his face. He stood in the center, controlling his breathing, peering into every corner. 

After a few minutes, he grew impatient. "Maaaaaster." He called in a sing-song voice. "You can't hide forever."

No response came, not a single minute rustle.

Obi-Wan frowned. He didn't feel the fresh tears stinging his eyes. "Master, where ARE you?"


	2. Chapter Two

Anakin emerged from the lavatory toweling his damp hair, feeling marginally better, the warm water having calmed him somewhat.

He stopped when he saw the empty couch.

"Master?" Relief mingled with apprehension, his tone unsure. "Master, where are you?"

Obi-Wan paced the length of his room, hands fisted in his hair, eyes sealed.

"I give up master I give up you got me I can't find you so just come out now okay?" He muttered in a nearly unintelligible string. His chest was painfully tight. "okay? I've checked everywhere you're really good better than Bant even and I said I give up!"

The silence rang in the Knight's ears, buzzed in his head, reminding him sharply that Qui-Gon wasn't answering.

Obi-Wan was seething, face going a shade paler. _He's hiding from me!!! _"I GIVE UP!"

The scream rattled glass…

And jolted Anakin's teeth. Wide-eyed, heart a thundering vessel, the apprentice ran down the corridor into his Master's quarters. 

He expected to find Obi-Wan red-faced, fuming.

But he found the man sitting on the edge of his bed holding his head in his hands. Ginger hair spilled to conceal moist eyes. His body trembled.

Anakin could easily see the gooseflesh risen on Obi-Wan's bare flesh. 

He swallowed, one heel tipped, as if frozen in mid-movement. "Master?" He prodded gently. 

The mournful figure gave no indication he had heard. 

Uncomfortably, he took a step. "Master…why did you…" He heaved an embarrassed sigh. "Master, are you alright?"

Obi-Wan tore his glassy gaze from the ground, lifting to meet his Padawan's dark, worried eyes. "Of course I am." He replied, in a clean, clipped tone loyal to the maelstrom swirling inside.

Anakin surged forward another few steps. "Then why were you yelling like that?"

Confusion, true bewilderment, clouded the handsome visage. "What are you talking about?"

"But…" Anakin sat beside him, studying his mentor keenly. "You _just_ yelled 'I give up'. Really loud."

Obi-Wan stared at him a moment before shaking his head. "Padawan, I'm sorry. I don't understand."

The boy bit down on his lip to stifle a frustrated cry. _How can he not remember?! _"You cut your hand last night." He took the injured palm and fingers, showing him the countless lacerations and drops of lingering burgundy. 

"I know this, Anakin." Obi-Wan said curtly. He pulled away, wincing at the faint pain. 

Anakin flushed. "You cut your hand, then you acted like you didn't know why the glass was in shatters and your hand was covered in blood. You just looked off into space." When he saw not a flicker of recognition, he continued. "Then you acted like everything was fine, " _Like you're doing now, _"And you fell asleep on the sofa. You slept for so long a-and I couldn't wake you, even when I shook you and---"

A touch fell to his shoulder, warm and secure. "Settle down. You're overreacting."

Anakin wanted badly to slap the tranquility off Obi-Wan's face. _How can he sit there and pretend nothing happened? _"I don't think I am." He countered in a cool, rebellious tone.

Ice crawled and hardened over his Master's face. The sign that he'd gone too far, pushed too close to the edge. 

Then Obi-Wan rubbed his eyes with the heel of his unmarred hand. 

Anakin hated when he did that. That single action transformed him from a stern teacher to a young, tired man, softening his features. He felt the anger drain from him slowly. 

Before Obi-Wan could reprimand him, Anakin spoke. "I'm sorry, Master. You're right."

From the weary lines deepened in the older Jedi's countenance, the boy guessed his forfeit mattered little. "Just…get cleaned up. We have training."

Anakin forced himself not to remind the Master he had showered a mere five minutes before, made himself believe Obi-Wan didn't notice the strong scent of soap and cologne.

"Yes, Master." He submitted quietly, taking a last unhappy look at him before retreating.

Obi-Wan quelled a yawn. He was exhausted, even after hours of sleep

And his head hurt.

__

No time no matter. A well-trained voice in his mind chimed.

He had spent many years schooling it to soothe his uncertainties, to stifle anything that would interfere with his focus on Anakin. 

Obi-Wan listened to the words now, as he lifted himself from the bed and met another day.

Sweat clung to their bodies, glistening on their skin and adhering thin inner layers of tunic to them. 

Anakin wiped at his slick, heated face. The apprentice followed his Master through the Temple halls, wondering without much surprise why the elder did not speak a word of greeting to friends and acquaintances he passed. 

They weren't moving particularly fast. Obi-Wan's legs, neither short nor particularly long, were almost idle in their slow gait. 

The pair had sparred for…was it hours?…before Obi-Wan signaled the end, powering down his saber abruptly and heading wordlessly for the exit.

Anakin had caught his breath, replacing his own weapon in his belt before taking a few quick bounds to catch up. Obi-Wan hadn't acknowledge his existence, in the familiar spot just behind and to the side of him. He looked single-minded; cerulean eyes moist and focused, hands curled to loose fists.

"Master, where are we going?" He ventured to ask, when the silence had finally threatened to strangle him.

Obi-Wan didn't spare a heartbeat to glance at his puzzled Padawan. "Midday meal." 

The answer was blunt and devoid of any human inflection. Anakin nearly stopped when he heard the cold emitting from his usually warm, kind teacher. "Don't you want to stop and…clean up?"

"He'd like that, wouldn't he?"

This time there was definite nuances to the voice. An unmistakable flair of suspicion and anger. Anakin's jaw set. He was tired, incredibly fed up, with staring at the back of Obi-Wan's head. And what was he talking about? WHO was he talking about?

Heat thrumming in him, Skwyalker gripped his Master's shoulder, perhaps just slightly hinting at his superior size. "Master!" 

Obi-Wan only craned his neck to look up at him. "Anakin, I want to get to the dining hall." 

Anakin sighed, air released sharply from his nostrils. "Master, who were you talking about just now?" He licked his lips as he summoned the courage to couple with his irritation. Red rose in a flush on his cheeks. "What's wrong with you?!"

Obi-Wan blinked. And did little less. 

"What's wrong with you?!!" He demanded again, not caring when curious Jedi's eyes wandered to them. 

"I'm hungry." Obi-Wan replied, sounding very young and…tired.

Anakin swallowed with a loud, thick click. What did you say to that? How could you argue with such a response? _Everyone will think I'm insane._ "Okay." He caved lamely.

His Master stared at him, eyes glazed, still and fevered. 

Then he turned back and continued walking.

Anakin felt helpless to follow.

The Temple Meal Hall was bustling when the two Jedi entered. Chatter filled the spanning space, as did differing aromas from the vast types of cuisine served.

Moisture flooded Anakin's mouth as his stomach rumbled. He looked over at Obi-Wan, whose eyes seemed everywhere but the food lines. "I'm going to get something." He muttered, not particularly caring if his Master objected or wanted to accompany him.

But, as he walked away, he found himself wishing Obi-Wan would rush up to do just that. 

He made it to the end, behind a Twi'lek, and forced himself to focus on her slim, teal neck than his infuriating mentor. His thoughts, however, could not so easily be distracted. 

__

Something's wrong with him. And he doesn't want to tell me.

A piercing pain met his heart at the musing. _He never wants to tell me anything anymore._

When a hand rested on his shoulder, Anakin jumped, a small cry escaping his lips as he wheeled around.

Bant, the gentle, salmon colored healer who doubled as Obi-Wan's dearest childhood friend, scrunched up her small face. In a pale hospital smock, the young alien regarded him with confusion. "Anakin? Why so tense?"

He felt, yet again, the burn of embarrassment on his face. He brought his hand up to rub the back of his head. "I'm sorry, Master Eerin. My mind was…elsewhere."

She smiled softly at that, a strange reaction to his admission.

"Sometimes you sound exactly like your Master." The Mon Calmarian commented with a charming smirk. "I wonder if he intends that."  
  
Anakin grinned back, though the expression wasn't completely legitimate. "I don't think so."

"Ah well…" Her gaze broke from his, searching the Hall with glittering light eyes. "I thought I sensed him here…" She returned to the apprentice and shrugged. "But his aura seems a little--muddled lately. Have you noticed that?"

Her tone wasn't grave, but not the same lilting spark it usually was. Anakin was so relieved he didn't move with the shifting line. "You've noticed that too?" He asked.

Bant nodded, pulling at the cloud of loose cellophane smock. "I was dining with him about a week ago, and he didn't act, well, normal. He barely looked me in the eye." 

The growing number of famished Jedi behind them interrupted the conversation. Anakin and Bant hurried forward to retrieve heated trays. As they journeyed the rows, the young Jedi placed a few extra dishes on his. Obi-Wan was never a very zealous eater, but this complete lack of appetite disconcerted Skywalker.

__

He works himself to exhaustion. He has to be hungry…..He said he was…

"Do you want to eat with us?" Anakin invited, pivoting through the crowds with the small Healer.

Bant balanced her tray long enough to give him a friendly punch. "Of course. I'd never reject an offer from my two favorite people."

He smiled. "Thanks."

They found Obi-Wan seated at a rarely used table, tucked into a corner, an area usually reserved for punished initiates. His shoulder was pressed to the wall, his knees touching to his chest with his arms encircling them. 

As the two approached, his eyes flickered up to meet their faces. 

Bant beamed and slid in beside him. "Hey, Obi." 

His smile was lifeless. "Hello."

Anakin watched the stiff, unnatural exchange, his heart thudding so fast his head was growing light. Blinking, he shoved the apprehension away and placed the small dishes in front of his Master. "Here, I got you some stuff."

Obi-Wan looked at the apprentice, as if he didn't comprehend.

Anakin indicated the food with a nudge of his head. "Your favorites."

Realization dawned dully in his gaze. Once beautiful blue eyes were tainted with ash, it seemed, so that they were gray as they studied the plates. 

Bant had been staring at her friend, but forced herself to take a bite, pink cheeks full.

The ballooned mouth had always spurred a reaction from the Knight, either a grunt of feigned disgust or delightful giggle.

Now he appeared not to notice at all. He was looking around the Hall, teeth clamped down on his lips. 

Bant sighed at Anakin, who offered a pathetic smile in return. 

A few minutes later, they were scraping nearly clean plates. Anakin peered at Obi-Wan's untouched meal as he gulped down the remnants of his potato and egg concoction. 

"Master, why don't you eat something?" 

Obi-Wan's head snapped up, the clattering din of the crowd almost consuming the quiet, cultured voice. "Why don't you realize your place?"

Bant came close to choking on the thick juice she was drinking. She quickly smacked the glass down and dabbed a napkin at her lips. Obi-Wan could be stern, if the situation warranted, but he never snapped at his young charge. "Obi-Wan!"

The gasp didn't startle him. He looked over at her, a single bead of sweat snaking down his temple. "What?" He asked crisply.

She fought to keep her jaw from dropping. "Obi, what's the matter with you? You won't eat, you barely talk and now this?"

__

Why doesn't she mind her own business doesn't she know that I'm looking for someone? Doesn't she know that Master could be hiding in here and I could lose him just because they won't shut their mouths?!

Bant looked exasperated. "Obi, answer me!"

Anakin watched her with fear concealed in his eyes. Bant was the most soft-spoken Jedi in the Temple. It took a lot for her to even raise her sweet, tremulous voice. 

The sweat had doubled; Obi-Wan's face was shining and his hair was a ginger wilt around his eyes. "I'm not hungry." He told her.

Anakin shook his head. "You said you were, Master! Right before, when we were in the hallway!"

__

He's lying. Look at him! He's lying right to my face I knew he would he would do anything to hurt me he's lying and Master will think I've gone crazy but I'm not crazy its Anakin he just hates me and he'll do anything to keep me from him…

Obi-Wan wasn't aware that he was trembling, glaring openly at his apprentice.

Bant laid her hand on his forehead, then moved to stroke his arm. "It's okay, Obi." She murmured against his ear. "I'm just going to take you home. I think you're tired."

The Knight shook his head. "I'm not. I just wish…I just wish he would know that I give up."

Anakin gaped at him. "Master! Master, what are you saying?"

Bant turned to the Padawan. "Don't listen to him, Anakin." She implored him gently. "He needs rest."

Obi-Wan shivered despite the obvious heat of his body. Bant wrapped an arm around him and stood, bringing him up beside her. "C'mon Obi."  
  
He tried to wrench from her hold. "I said I give up!" He shouted. _There maybe he'll hear me this time and then he'll stop hiding from me oh I want to find him…oh I give up I give up I give up…_ "I give up!"

"Shh." Bant rubbed his back, ignoring the confused stares of other Jedi. She walked him briskly from the Hall, leaving Anakin at the secluded table, his stomach churning. 

He was still muttering as they walked down the corridor, eyes both fire and glittering moistly, fixed on the distance.

Bant's heart swelled with compassion and dawning fear. "Obi-Wan, what's the matter?" But she felt foolish instantly afterwards. _As if he would tell me. _To try to ease him, she trailed her fingers down his damp, cream sleeve.

He wrenched his arm away with a sharp curse. 

Bant stopped, pulling him when he would have stormed forward. "Obi-Wan, WHAT IS GOING ON?"

He was looking beyond the small Mon Calamarian, lips pressed together determinedly, deepening the cleft of his chin. _Wouldn't she like to know…wouldn't she like to drag me away to the healers and hook me up to machines and drug me and make me forget…but I can't forget…_ Tears trickled down his sweat-coated cheek. _I can't forget him. _

Bant shook her head with an incredulous balk. "Obi, _answer_ me!"

He was motionless, save the quiver of misery in his eyes.

She grabbed both his hands and entwined them in hers. "Please Obi." The healer said gently. Her face was painted softly in the light. 

But Obi-Wan knew it was a twisting lie. He tore his gaze from the background. There was unmistakable anger and fierce irritation heating in him. "What's wrong with me?" He mocked. "YOU are what's wrong with me! You and Anakin and everyone else in this DAMNED TEMPLE!"

Bant winced despite her attempts at strength. _Who is this? Where is my sweet Obi-Wan? _"Obi…" She began, voice reduced to a sorrowful, concerned half-whisper. "Your friends, your own Padawan are--"

"Against me." He spat.

"No. We have done nothing to hurt you. We are _always_ here to help you." She dared stroke his temple lightly, fingers along the golden, warm skin. "To love you."

And then he launched himself into her arms with a ragged sob, arms coming tight around her slight body, head pressed to her silken hair. 

Bant held him, ignoring the tears coursing down her own face. "I love you." She murmured, cupping his bowed head. 

He gulped, breath shaking and small cries jerking from his mouth. His sun-kissed mane and beard glistened wetly. "Then why won't you tell me where he is?" He asked meekly. 

"WHY?!"

Bant's shoulders quaked. "Who?"

Mouth compressing, Obi-Wan threw out his palm, sending his confused and utterly frightened friend flying into the wall.

Anakin jogged down the corridor, rounding a corner with a smooth, graceful slide.

"Bant!" He saw the small healer crumpled on the ground and raced to her side. 

Bant lifted her head, blinking. "Ani…" She croaked.

His eyes were wide and he suddenly looked very much his young age. "What---"

"He's ill. I--I sensed it." He helped her to her feet, one hand lingering to steady her. She touched lightly on her temple, where a pale blue bruise was already forming in a tiny splotch. Her round face was flushed a darker shade of pink than the rest of her skin. "Something deep." Her tongue ran over soft rose lips. "Something…old."

Anakin nodded, pitching his worried gaze toward their quarters' direction. His hands went to border tense flanks. "Did he hurt you?" He had to know, though he dreaded the answer, as evident in the somber husk of his voice. 

Bant looked at him compassionately, running her hand down his arm as any mother would. "No." She lied, but only on a minute level. The ache of her shoulder was so minor there was no need to mention it to him. He was already upset enough. "He startled me. That's all."

Anakin heaved a sigh, partially relieved. "I have to go find him."

Before he could move, she stopped him with the wrapping of slim fingers around his wrist. "Ani."

He turned to her.

There was slight hesitation, as her mind's eye traveled to the desperation of Obi-Wan's face. "He--" She paused long enough to push a stray strand of hair behind her ear, and to gather her bearings. "He said he needed to find someone. I think---I think he was convinced we, the entire Temple, were trying to keep him from this person."

Anakin's high forehead crinkled. "Who could he be looking for?"

Bant shrugged. "I don't know. But he's intent on locating…whoever this is."

The Padawan rubbed his face wearily. "He's been acting so odd lately. He shattered a mug in his hand and didn't even notice, didn't even try to pull the pieces from his hand and I--" He gulped. "I didn't do anything about it. I didn't tell anyone."

Bant shook her head. "You've told me. And now we know there's something definitely wrong with Obi-Wan…You haven't failed him."

Anakin smiled, albeit weakly and without spirit. Then he started down the hallway, waiting until he turned the curve to break into a sprint.

Obi-Wan wiped at his eyes. He stormed through the gleaming corridors and vestibules, steps fumbling when the pain would resurface and throb in his skull. 

__

Now you've done it oh now you've really done it someone probably saw you oh yes and now they're going to tell someone and you'll never find him. She was a problem yes and she needed to be stopped but no what a stupid foolish way to go about it. Stupid stupid stupid.

Obi-Wan winced, grabbing at his head. _I couldn't help it I needed her to go away she was trying to keep me from him like everyone else like…Anakin and I couldn't let her…_

Finally, he stumbled into the apartment, walking past the dead lighting fixtures and closing himself in the lavatory.

He slumped against the sink. He stared glassy-eyed into the mirror, nails digging into the flesh of his forearms. 

His focus raked over his reflection. Obi-Wan took in the thin spread of ginger beard, the thick hair that brushed against his neck, evolved from his regulation Padawan spikes…

His breath caught. A hand drifted to drive through the nest of light colored strands.

An image stood out in his mind, sharp and vivid and damning of his apparent idiocy. 

…_The mission had been long. Months spent on a barren world where winter reigned throughout the year, and when the two Jedi entered their shared transport room,, they gratefully shed their well-worn cloaks._

Qui-Gon, once he was peeled of his cumbersome outer tunics and obnoxious goulashes, collapsed on the wide bed.

Obi-Wan sniffled, nose pinched and red from the cold he had carried for the majority of the assignment. "I must admit, I'm glad to be leaving this place, Master."

The graying Jedi watched his apprentice recline on his own bed and smiled. "So I take it you've missed the controlled climate of Coruscant."

A dry, lilting laugh. "Now, I didn't say that."

Qui-Gon sat up stiffly. The young man was lying in the barest layer of cream tunic, leggings loose and feet naked. "Do you know what I've missed during these never-ending negotiations?"

"What?"

He reached out to ruffle the auburn hair, grown out from the close-cropped apprentice style over the course of their mediating tasks. It still felt soft and clean, but took away perhaps a shred of his innocence. "I miss your terrible Padawan haircut."

Obi-Wan giggled, rolling onto his stomach. "Why? I still have my braid." convoluted

"True." Qui-Gon's midnight blue eyes shined. "But I can barely recognize you."….

Obi-Wan's mouth pursed before twisting into a smile. _That's it._


	3. Chapter Three

Anakin burst into the apartment, cheeks flushed from exertion. "Master?" The apartment was dim and motionless. But his mentor's muffled presence was fairly evident…not the soft incandescence, so bright and comforting…a candle's flame weakening by an unseen gale.

"Master!" He trotted down the hallway, past framed holos of happier times and solemn milestones. Anakin stopped at the strip of yellow light where the lavatory door met the tan carpet. He laid a wide hand on the steel barrier between them. "Master, are you alright?"

There was no response, save the quiet sound of fast, sharp clips.

Anakin's brow furrowed. "Master, what's going on?" When he wasn't offered an explanation, he sighed heavily and stared unseeing at the ceiling. "Master, please. You can tell me."

A pause, then the odd snipping continued.

Anakin compressed his lips in frustration. His face, smeared and misshapen, was reflected by the door's silvery surface. He looked away. "Master, I'm worried. Just let me in."

Obi-Wan uttered an annoyed grunt. "I'm not required to acquiesce to any demand of yours, _Padawan._" He reminded the boy caustically. "Now, leave. Me. Alone."

Anakin took a step back, hurt going sharp into his chest. "NO!"

The cutting was hastier, louder. "DAMN YOU, Anakin! Get the hell away before I'm _forced_ to move you!" He rumbled.

Anakin crossed his arms. "Then force me!"

There was a clatter and resounding slam, then Obi-Wan shoved the door open manually.

Anakin gasped. A hand clamped over his mouth.

The hair that had always rested at the base of Obi-Wan's neck, gleaming auburn and golden and ginger all at once, was raggedly shorn into a riot of spikes, all of differing lengths. His beard had been shaved completely off; small drops of blood seeped from the nicks. 

"Master…" He breathed. With the formal mane and facial hair cut away, a striking, almost tender youth was revealed in Obi-Wan Kenobi.

His face was more boyishly round, eyes vibrant and vulnerable. 

He didn't appear to be a seasoned and weathered Jedi Knight.

He looked like the worried Padawan crouched beside his sweating Master on the starship floor, with the dimpled chin and smooth cheeks. 

Anakin's eyes widened. _He looks like a Padawan._ "Master…" He started cautiously. "What have you done?"

"The question is, what have you been doing, Anakin?" Obi-Wan countered, acid dripping from his fierce tone.

Anakin swallowed. "What do you mean?" _Oh force, he looks barely older than me!_

Obi-Wan chuckled. "I think you know, _Ani._" He mocked bitterly. "You talked to Bant."

His eyes darted from his teacher's painfully open face. "Of course I did."

"What'd she say?"

"Why should I have to tell you anything? You won't be honest with me! You won't tell me anything!" He screamed. 

Obi-Wan wasn't shaken. He only blinked. "I don't have to tell you anything. _I_ am the Master here." He tried to barrel past him, but strong hands pushed him backward.

The ice was melted by crackling fire in Obi-Wan's eyes. They were a dismal, cloudy gray…streaked with tears. "Get out of my way." He demanded in a low, dangerous tone.

"No!" Anakin snapped. "You could have hurt Bant! Why?" He grasped Obi-Wan's shoulders tightly. "Why would you try to hurt your friend?!"

Obi-Wan's eyes bore into him, without the least bit of intimidation. "I don't care who it is…If they stand in the way of finding him, I will do _whatever_ it takes." He swore vehemently. 

Anakin grit his teeth. "WHO?! Who are you talking about?!"

The fist that smashed into his face didn't offer an answer.

Pain erupted in Anakin's nose as he was thrown back, slapping onto the floor.

He lay there for a few stunned seconds, squeezing his eyes shut, water rolling down his cheeks.

And the pause was all Obi-Wan needed to launch on top of him, a flurry of limbs, snarling, raw strength potent in the hands hurdling at his apprentice's prone body.

"Master…" Anakin panted, hot burgundy spattered on his skin. "Please…"

But, as he saw the unbridled rage in the man's eyes, felt the dead presence in the Force where luminosity once lived, Anakin realized his Master was gone. 

Smothered by…whatever demon had ripped control from Obi-Wan, who held the gentle heart and quiet, reserved nature hostage…who filled this powerful body with savage bloodlust.

Fingers wrapped tightly around his neck.

Anakin instinctively clutched at them, eyes wide. "No…" He gasped.

Obi-Wan straddled him as he wrestled the reddening column with gritted teeth. His vision was a gray smear, but he didn't need clarity to accomplish what he sought. He could hear the struggle of breath and dry chokes.

__

Yessss…You'll be free…You can find him…Just a little more…

The whispers rasped in his head, swarming his mind, and the pleading voice of his Padawan began to fade in the drowning onslaught…

Anakin tried to Force-push Obi-Wan off, but there was a thick block erected around the Knight, and he couldn't manage a defense. Slowly, his arms, that had shoved desperately at his attacker, fell.

As darkness encroached on him, the boy looked up with trembling disbelief, lips splotching with dark blue…

__

Yesss… Obi-Wan grinned, freshly shorn hair falling into his face, sweat gleaming on his honeyed temple. _Yessss…Yessss…_

NO.

That was different from the wispy, shadowed tones that crowded his thoughts.

This was a rich, warm inflection that spoke to his soul. Familiar. _Caring_. 

Obi-Wan hesitated, hands loosening, eyes filmed with fresh tears. "Master?" He called softly.

Anakin coughed. He carefully lifted his head and found the man, so painfully young with his open, glowing face, staring ahead.

He knew his chance had come. With a grating cry, he catapulted Obi-Wan off his chest, rolling to his stomach and grabbing weakly at his bruised throat.

He leapt to his feet before he recovered fully, to continue the fight before his teacher could.

But Obi-Wan was sprawled on the floor, as if he had yet to register the rough offense.

Anakin wiped at his dripping lip. Breathing heavily, he took cautious steps forward.

Obi-Wan was expressionless, legs and arms limp, head turned away.

Anakin remembered the vacancy of this same face, shards of porcelain scattered at his feet, pallor bleached.

"Master…?"

The acrid words muttered at the Dining Hall, meant to hurt…succeeding…

The detached aura only minutes before…

The way he always shut himself away to purge his sorrows while Anakin wondered what he had done to cause his Master's tortured, muffled sobs…

The plea to Qui-Gon, to comprehend the danger of a small slave boy…

Who wanted nothing but to become a Jedi…

Who _deserved_ Qui-Gon's tutelage…

Who had to _settle_ with someone who was a naïve child himself…

"I HATE YOU!" Anakin screamed, stalking quickly forward and hauling the dazed man up, gripping handfuls of tunic.

Obi-Wan's head dipped back, his eyelids pulsing as they descended.

"IHATEYOUIHATEYOUIHATEYOU!!!!!" Anakin buffeted the vulnerable, lax form with his fists, kicking when his mentor collapsed, the anger a red haze overtaking him.

So immersed in the frantic violence, he didn't notice Bant slip into the room…

Or the hand that pressed to his forehead, sending a suggestion that sent him toppling over into oblivion. 

Bant fell to Obi-Wan's side, gasping his name. 

His eyes were closed, and his mouth hung open, a row of white peeking out from cracked lips. 

Where, she saw with dawning horror, a thin stream of blood was sliding down to outline the chin and pool in the small cleft. 

"Obi…" Bant reached out with tentative, healer hands and turned his head to the side. A cloud of light red stained his cheekbone and colored his smooth jaw line.

"Oh…stars." She inhaled, pale eyes wide and confused. The Mon Calamarian touched the shorn, gleaming hair. Without the longer drape concealing his round, boyish temple and beard stealing the youthful tinges of his face, her friend looked like the amiable, eager, sweet Padawan he once was.

Bant swallowed, shaking her head. "No….Obi…What's happening to you?" Darkening contusions and fresh, burning blood littered his body. Places where…Anakin had….

"Ani." She whispered, glancing over her small shoulder to see the apprentice stirring weakly. _Already?_ Huffing, the Knight stood and moved to Anakin.

The boy blinked, a spray of blood over his eyes, hand going to his head. "Ow…"

Bant crossed her arms, trying to appear authoritative, while inside she was as frightened as a child. "I didn't whack you over the head, Ani. You're fine." She leveled her gaze. "Now get up." 

He was quick to obey. 

"I want you to explain what happened here. I want to know why I found you beating your Master, _Padawan_ Skywalker." Bant told him calmly, a coolness to her feminine voice that was totally uncharacteristic…and therefor, all the more disconcerting. 

Anakin dropped his eyes from her questioning face, and saw his Master on the floor, dead asleep. Their bond, of course, remained just as unresponsive. The bruises and deep slashes of blood turned his stomach.

"I checked him. His injuries are minor." She informed him with an almost detached air. 

And he couldn't help but rip his focus from the scene, look to Bant once more. His lips quivered. "He---He punched me, Master."

Bant's hand went to her heart with a desolate sound. "Force, Ani. Why?"

He touched lightly on his sore nose and winced. "He wanted to know if I had talked to you…after…."

She sealed her eyes briefly, as the pain and controlled anger passed through her. "Yes." Hesitantly, Bant squeezed his arm. "Go on."

Anakin wiped a smear of burgundy from his cheek. "I told him I had, and he just…went crazy. He wasn't making any sense and then he…punched me."

Bant swallowed the rising lump of apprehension in her throat. "You fought?"

Anakin's eyes trailed off a moment, then he nodded. "Yeah." 

"I see." She said. "But Ani, that doesn't explain the shouting I heard."

He opened his mouth to reply, but Obi-Wan began to rouse behind them.

Secretly, Anakin was relieved.


	4. Chapter Four

The healer dropped easily to the ground, swiping a stray lock of salmon hair behind her ear as she descended. 

"Obi?" She said, concern appearing in fine lines between her brows. 

His eyelids fluttered.

Force-soothing laced her naturally nurturing touch, tracing the troubled face. "Obi, wake up."

The man, who looked remarkably like the apprentice he had once been, moaned. "H-Hurts."

Bant spared a second to glance at Anakin, standing a small distance behind her, expression caught between worry and brooding. "He's not attempting to lessen the pain." She told the Padawan grimly. "That should be instinctive. Especially for Obi."

It was strange hearing the endearments used toward his Master. Sometimes, Anakin forgot that Obi-Wan had once been young. Seeing the naked visage, free of the masquerade of beard and longer mane, Anakin realized his teacher still was. And it was difficult to accept. 

"Maybe he's just groggy." He suggested. 

Bant visibly mulled over the theory, then shook her head. "His presence has been muddled. Even when shielding or injured, Obi's always shone brightly in my own Force connection."

Anakin nodded. 

The female Knight turned back to her friend. "Obi, I'll help you, if you just open your eyes and let me."

Obi-Wan frowned, wiping blindly at the uncomfortable viscous warmth on his mouth. "Hmpph…Tell h-him it hurts."

Anakin crashed to his knees, shoulder near the much smaller Bant's head. "I'm here, Master." He bowed his body to lean forward, grasping a limp hand. "A-And I know it hurts." His chest ached from sharp, beating guilt.

Bant looked up at him and stroked his shoulder reassuringly. She had no real idea what occurred between them, but she _had to_ encourage steps taken to mend this violent rift.

"Master, please." Anakin urged with trembling strength.

Slowly, fingers returned the pressure.

Anakin grinned briefly. He braced the side of Obi-Wan's face with his free hand. "Master?"

Obi-Wan's bruised lips parted. "Tell h-him."

The blonde-capped apprentice wrinkled his forehead. "Who? Master, I'm---"

"Tell him he w-w-wins." The insistent rasp interrupted. "I give up."

Anakin shook his head, trying to control the sorrow building in his throat. "No. _No._ Master, don't say that." His fearful eyes flew to Bant, but the Temple physician could only stare down at her lifetime companion. He brought his Master's hand to his chin. "Master, _never _say that."

Tears gleamed on colorless lashes. "Hurts. E-Everything h-h-hurts."

Bant rose. "I'm calling for the healers. "

Anakin could only nod, the blame and anxiety spread cold throughout him, thickening in his mouth, and trickling from his dark eyes. 

Half an hour later found them in a small hospital room, a ceiling fan whirling above at a slow clip. 

"The injuries are basically superficial." Bant concluded, eyes narrowed in crisp concentration. Her hand hovered above Obi-Wan's stiff midsection. Bruises mottled the ivory skin and she blinked back tears, forcing herself to remain in healing mode. "I just have to be sure there's no internal damage." 

Anakin watched her tenderly probing fingers move up to his Master's neck. "Okay." He said quietly. 

Obi-Wan's eyes were half-lidded, watching the ministrations but largely unaware of them, their surface glassy and filmed. 

The Padawan took a step backward. _I can't….Oh Force what did I do?_

Bant stopped to smooth Obi-Wan's hair before pouring over a tray of salves and bandages. "But he still needs something pretty strong to mend the lacerations and contusions." She knew of Anakin's extreme discomfort as she described the consequence of his outburst, but she also knew he couldn't be shielded from it. "I think he should enter a trance before I apply the medicines." Bant turned to the apprentice, her petite features set. "Can you help him?"

Anakin's lips compressed, halting the trembles. "You---want me to put him in a trance?"

Bant laid a roll of gauze aside and clasped his clammy hand. "I know that something negative has gone on between you two. Things were said that you didn't mean. And maybe some that you did.

"But that doesn't change the way you feel in the core of your soul, Ani. You care for your Master. And _I _know for a fact that Obi-Wan Kenobi loves you more than anyone in this Universe. You depend on one another, even when you disagree."

Anakin studied her face for the tiniest trace of insincerity. Yet, as it always was with Bant, he only found sweet truth. Hesitantly, he allowed himself a tight smile. 

Bant fairly beamed at the breakthrough. "You've done some things you regret today. You can help him now, Anakin." She pulled him into an abrupt embrace. Her head rested on his chest for a brief second. "And through this, you can tell him you're sorry."

Anakin accepted the solace of her generosity with tears frozen in his eyes. The oblivious form of his Master was visible over her shoulder. 

She relinquished her touch, then wiped a gleam of moisture from his cheek. "He'll apologize too, Ani. He needs time, but Obi-Wan couldn't bear to have this stand."

Anakin nodded at the diminutive physician. "Thank you, Master Eerin."

Bant chuckled. "No need for formalities now, kid. We've been through a lot today." Her hand caressed Obi-Wan's forehead. "And so has he." She added somberly. 

Anakin gathered a breath. The heaviness remained inside, but her words made it manageable, for now. "I was wrong to do what I've done. I'll make it up to him." He told her resolutely.

She smiled. "He has faith in you, Ani."

The young Jedi set a chair beside the hospital cot. He curved his hands around Obi-Wan's temples. "I have faith in him." He murmured to himself. Then he closed his eyes. 

Bant moved silently forward to ease her friend's lids down, ghosting a kiss across his brow. _I have faith in both of you._

I have to. 

The link between Anakin and his Master was a plaiting of vibrancy and steady trust, affection and pledged devotion. 

Light and dark. Everything that resided in their souls, the deepest, most hidden strands, were meant to be entwined. 

There were supposed to be no secrets. 

It was the ancient reason for the slender, beaded Padawan braid. As it grew, so matured the bond of the Jedi pair.

Anakin had believed Obi-Wan to be an open, honest Master, for the most part. He concealed only the more intimate facets of his heart, where wounds throbbed and insecurities thrived.

Anakin was well aware. For he possessed the same tendencies. 

But this shadowed, muffled presence in the Force was not remotely similar to the bright, pure aura of Obi-Wan. 

The apprentice had struggled through the foreign place, moving beyond constrictions that would have hindered him in less desperate situations. For now, he shoved the hesitancies away, galvanizing himself with unwavering intent.

He controlled his shock and sorrow when once-familiar, warm passages were tainted with dark, shaky, cold fear.

Obi-Wan's fear.

Anakin's mind, immersed deeply in his teacher's, trembled. He knew, of course, that Obi-Wan experienced doubt, uncertainty, and even bare, jarring alarm.

But he'd never sensed it in him so strongly, so unmasked. 

Anakin risked a tender attempt to reach him. _Master?_

No actual words were exchanged at the ethereal level, just embodiments of emotion and thought.

The static that answered him was frustrating. He tried again, ribbons of care and love spiraling around the call. _Master? I'm here…I'm here to help…_

Instantly, pain erupted in Obi-Wan's mind, bursting from every corridor. 

Anakin mentally gasped at the powerful onslaught. Remnants of his Master's perspective, images of Anakin's fists hurdling and his legs kicking, flew. 

__

I know..I hurt you…

A whimper replied, and the Padawan was fueled by the weak response, wispy fingers of his Force stroking the confused soul of his mentor. _I know it hurts…_

I hurt too. He mentioned hastily. _But I can make the pain leave you…You just have to let me, Master…_

..Leave? Obi-Wan questioned, still distanced from his apprentice.

__

Yes. It can go away. Anakin detected faint shimmers of his Master surfacing. He thrust the relief from his consciousness, to maintain the intense focus. _Just follow me…and then let go…_

Obi-Wan's bewildered delight broke through his mind's haze. _…follow..._

Yes, Master. We've done it before….Healing trance?…

Realization buoyed the heavy, tired Knight. _…trance…yess…._

****

No!

Anakin was nearly catapulted from the connection by the sizzling denial. He grasped onto the bond. _Master….what are you doing…I'm trying to help…_

Another gust buffeted Anakin's mind. 

__

I DON'T NEED HELP. Obi-Wan ground out. _You don't want to help… nobody does they just want to take him away… it's all been lies all of it and you know it… don't you know it?_

Anakin didn't have time to deliberate a careful approach. _Master, there is something wrong inside you. _He stressed, stretching out to brush his presence against Obi-Wan's. _You're not thinking clearly… You HAVE to let me help you._

YOU have to let me find him! 

A maelstrom formed in the ravaged head of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Anakin was helpless to fight it, plummeting away from his Master, and into an icy, black oblivion.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes narrowly, through a smeared haze, and saw the stark white walls and silvery medical equipment of the healing ward.

He smirked, shaking his head.

"I knew it. Nobody helps. They just trick…Dirty tricks." His voice was dangerously quiet…acidic/

Obi-Wan looked down, and discovered tubes digging into his bruised flesh.

"Think they can hold me here? They think they can hold me here?!" He snarled, ripping the i.v. from his wrists without a flinch. 

They fell away with dark, stray droplets of blood that splattered across the floor. 

He threw the covers aside.

Bant rushed into the room, having stepped into the hall to collect more salve for his wounds. She stopped when she found Anakin slumped in the chair and Obi-Wan unconcerned, fresh blood dripping from his hands. 

"Obi?" She questioned carefully. "What are you doing?"

His eyes were barely focused, filmed with tears and ire. "What I should've done from the beginning, you witch." 

His melodious accent, that never raised above a calm note, was gruff, heavy…razor sharp.

Bant's breath caught in her chest. "And what's that, Obi-Wan?" In contrast, her words were gentle and even. Her unblinking eyes drifted to the Padawan's unconscious body.

Obi-Wan stood, a grin splitting his face and dark glint in his gaze. "You needn't try to fool me anymore. I know what you all're doing….It's going to end _now._"

Her trembling, salmon fingers curled. "What is?"

He snorted. "What did I _just_ say? I'm GOING to find him, witch."

She couldn't prevent the pained wince that crossed her concentrated features. _How can he say this to me? _

Anakin moaned, stirring behind them.

Bant's stomach clenched. _What…What would he do to him? _"You want to find him, Obi-Wan?" She stared levelly at him. "Go. I won't stop you. I'll make sure no one stops you."

Obi-Wan cocked a brow uncertainly, hand grasping to his head, chin dimpled, appearing sharply young and strangely innocent.

Bant's heart ached. _It's not him…It's not him…Obi's inside…Not him…_ "Just go." She urged.

And he did, in a blur, leaving a gush of cold air in his midst.

Bant flew to Anakin's side. 

The boy's head was tipped against the back of the chair. Frightened, broken murmurs were spoken through parted lips.

She touched his high forehead. "Ani…Ani you have to wake up." She called insistently. 

"…n-no…Master…" He groaned.

Bant squeezed his arm. "Anakin!"

His eyes opened to bleary, red-washed slits. "Where…Master?"

She helped him sit erect, wild worry frenzied in the lines of her small body. "Ani, are you alright?"

"Mmmmph…Yeah." He gathered a breath and scanned the room. 

"He's gone." She told him before he could ask. "I had to let him go. I wasn't sure…He might've hurt you."

Anakin surged to his feet. "Where did he go?" 

"I--I don't know." Bant admitted gravely. "But he couldn't have gone far."

The Padawan wiped at his face. "We have to find him. There's something…wrong inside him. I felt it in his mind." He inhaled, forcing himself to repeat the pain. "He pushed me out."

Bant grabbed a syringe and adjacent vial. "If I can take him out with this, he has a chance."

Anakin held her moist eyes with his, nodding. 

They barreled into the corridor. 

Oh no. Yet another cliffie…..Moohoohaha. Thanks for the replies everyone. It lets me know someone's reading, and hopefully, enjoying. ;) More soon. 


	5. Chapter Five

Obi-Wan's hand hugged to the side of his head as he ran. Pain from the wounds scattered across his body slowed his speed, but the gritting of his teeth absorbed much of it. 

It had been simple to break free of the healing ward. Apparently, his fellow Jedi weren't expecting violent reactions from someone known for his placid demeanor. 

Especially the young orderly who, wide eyed, could only watch behind her desk as the half-naked, bruised and bloodied Knight tore through the front area. The girl yelped when the vibrations of uninhibited Force knocked frames from the walls and rattled the glass tumbler in her hands. 

He laughed inwardly, the grinding beat in his mind nearly drowning the faint humor he found in her surprise. 

Faces lined his periphery as he passed through. Any familiarity was lost in the torrent of anger and single-minded determination. 

They stared at him, these quasi strangers, as if their bodies had been miraculously turned to stone by the sheer power, the sharp intensity, of his thunderous strides.

A few voices called to him, but they were smothered at once by the snide chants echoing in his head. 

__

No. Can't stop now. Not for THEM. THEY are the bad. Why do you think you're in this mess big bad mess who is the reason for all of this mess you know who. THEY are the bad. Bad. Bad…

"Bad." Obi-Wan agreed softly, aloud.

He traveled the Temple in a human equivalent to auto pilot, winding through the slender, stainless paths without truly registering a step. 

He entered a lift. Master Kit Fisto was standing in the corner of the small perimeter. His lime hands were folded, crisply green head tails settled around his shoulders.

Deeply black eyes, with large pupils that appeared to be in constant dilation and vanished amid the dark rims, flickered over Kenobi. He offered a generous smile, though the Force surrounding the Knight was bordering on frightening. 

The doors sealed.

Obi-Wan pushed a button for a lower level, then, with a cruel, frustrated grimace, cancelled Fisto's ordered floor. 

The alien Master frowned. "Knight Kenobi, what are y--"

"SHUT UP!" Obi-Wan screamed, clapping his hands over his ears and shutting his eyes. 

Fisto was jolted by the volume, but recovered quickly, grasping the man by the arms. He stared into the flushed countenance, and almost choked on his shock. Kenobi had been Bant Eerin's dearest friend since they were both toddling in the creche…years before Fisto had accepted the slight Mon Calamarian girl as his apprentice, at the pinnacle of her despair, when her first teacher was murdered.

He was acquainted with the rather famous former Padawan to Qui-Gon Jinn, but had seen little of him since he became a Master in his own right. 

Despite this, the Obi-Wan he knew was thoughtful, quiet…polite. And with a natural respect he bestowed on all deserving life forms.

This man strikingly resembled that tender student, with his hair mowed down to regulation Padawan style, and his cheeks closely shaved.

"Do you need some help?" He asked the younger Jedi, unsure of how to approach the odd situation. His hands were tight on Obi-Wan, supportive yet stern. 

Obi-Wan's eye twitched. He pulled roughly away. "The bad. Every last one of you." He rasped. The lift plunged to its destination.

Kit Fisto stood still, his hands out in front of him. "The bad? Obi-Wan---"

The elevator's doors opened. The Knight looked at him for a moment, a peculiar, fevered glaze in his sky-kissed eyes. His lips quivered uncontrollably.

"Obi-Wan, why don't you come back in here?" Fisto urged kindly, shielding his inner concerns. "We can talk. I haven't talked to you in awhile." 

Conflict seemed to cloud the watered gaze. Obi-Wan pulled at an uneven tuft of hair with almost child-like whimpers. 

Kit's heart lurched. "Obi-Wan, what's wrong?"

And Kenobi's hand thrust outward, sending the Master flying back under the strain of rippling waves. 

Obi-Wan spared a beat to grab his head while fierce aches attacked. _Good. Another down…Another that would keep you away from him…Like they've been doing since…it happened._

The lights of the hall nearly blinded him, but he sprinted forward, tears trickling from his eyes. 

When the massive, ornate doors finally came into view, he wanted to weep in relief. 

The Room of a Thousand Fountains.

Obi-Wan grinned feebly. _I'm here, Master. I know I've found you._

Anakin went to a jogging stop, eyes darting sharply, searching for remnants of his Master's aura in the Temple hall.

Bant took a breath. While her pale rose tinted face remained untaxed, inside she was frantic.

Seeing Obi-Wan Kenobi, the most powerful, gentle Knight in the Order, her lifelong friend with the bright laughter in his eyes and pure light in his soul, speaking words that…_dripped_ in malevolence…was painfully surreal.

It was like Master Yoda striding down the street, six feet tall.

It simply wasn't plausible. 

And the fact that this was happening shook her, and every belief she had held true, to her core.

She looked over at Anakin, his tanned face intense.

Bant wondered what this was doing to him.

But it had to be a fleeting worry, because the boy took off running again. 

"He's been through here." Anakin explained. "He's been blocking really well, but Master can't close me off one hundred percent."

Bant nodded. Her short hair was whipped behind her by the wind of their haste.

Their feet pounded against the slick floor, reverberating within the walls of the passageways. Anakin, if he had been allowed the idle thought, would have been shook by how closely the remote halls resembled him.

He felt incredibly empty at this moment, the only reprieve from the gnawing silence the beat of his heart.

__

Master…

"Master!" Bant gasped, skidding to a halt before she could collide with a wide-eyed and breathless Kit Fisto.

The alien Jedi put a hand on his head gingerly. "Padawan," The name ran as an old endearment, her knighthood confirmed six years earlier, "I--"

"You've seen Obi-Wan." She guessed, glancing over at the towering apprentice to gauge his reaction.

Anakin swallowed shakily. "Where?!"

"He walked into the lift I was on." Fisto told him, liquid black eyes grim. "I could tell something was seriously wrong with him, but I didn't want to risk him hurting himself by startling him. I tried to talk calmly with him, but he wasn't having any of it."

"He hurt you?" Anakin questioned, although he didn't doubt it.

Master Fisto nodded. "He Force-pushed me. I was dazed--I didn't see where he went. And I don't know him well enough to sense--"

"It's alright, Master." Bant squeezed his hand briefly. 

Anakin stared at the halls lain out before them. With a deliberate slowness, his eyelids lowered, his creased forehead smoothing and hands dropping. The crazy whirlwind around him, the voices of the fellow Jedi, faded away, leaving only the concern and deep, bottomless love for his Master throbbing in the Force.

Bant's eyes met those of her former teacher's, and they were glinting with unshed tears. For all the seemingly undying tension between Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker, the rivalry the boy created in his mind between them-thinking no one else knew--they were as close as any two could be. 

Jedi or otherwise. 

"It's up to them." She said in a hitching voice, the fear for Obi-Wan constricting her throat. "I can sedate him…And treat his wounds. But I can't--" Bant swallowed, dashing away the invading moisture from her cheek. "I can't help him the way his Padawan can. Force, I can't even _diagnose_ him.

"Anakin's the only one."

And at that moment, the topic of their conversation's eyes flew open. 

"The fountains!" He yelled to them, already sprinting in a blur down the corridor.

"And he knows he's the only one." The green-skinned Master observed, touching her shoulder. 

Bant's face was grave, dampness on her skin shining in the half-light. "Then he's going to save him." She said, her words devoid of doubt. "Anakin 's devotion is rare, but when its given, its given completely. 

"I just have to be there to help them once its over."

Kit nodded.

She rested her hand on his forearm. "Go to the healer's, Master. Tell them to be prepared for him."

"I will, Padawan."

"And then get your head bandaged. That lump starting there is huge." Sad humor twinkled in her gaze. Then she headed in the direction of Anakin. 

Even with the knowledge of the apprentice's dedication, the roil in her belly couldn't dissipate.

More soon…Thanks for the replies, as always! -LuvEwan


	6. Chapter Six

The room was vast. A tranquil method of escape, with creamy ceramic fountains and simple, but utterly entrancing, waterworks. 

It was the serene center of the Temple.

And it had been Qui-Gon Jinn's favorite place within the massive building.

__

No…It is_ his favorite…is… …because he's here…he's here and he can't hide anymore…playing is over because I've found him…yes…found him…_

Obi-Wan grasped his forehead for a brief, painful moment, his steps stalled. "Oh…oh." Through eyes narrowed by a wince, he took in the wealth of glittering springs, surrounded by trails of verdant, heart-shaped leaves and the occasional white lily cluster. 

The aged stone beneath his feet had suffered countless cracks throughout the years, splitting what was once smooth alabaster veined with shades of gold. The pressure of too many steps taken left the lovely, light-flecked surface battered, irreparably damaged --but still, miraculously, beautiful.

The clean beams of sun streaking from high, spotless windows spilled on his bare neck. Obi-Wan rubbed the heated skin absently as he walked the room's stone-lined path, panting. The relentless pounding in his head made each movement seem an enormous exertion. He wanted to scream out to his sneaky, elusive Master…

__

But then he'd know I was here…Then he'd just run again…Can't let that happen I'm so tired I just want to find him…I just want to…

Obi-Wan rubbed his eye with the heel of a hand, the puffed, pink skin around his eyes and the messy haircut making him seem to be nothing more than a sleepy child who wandered from his bed in search of a parent.

His knees began to burn. Obi-Wan massaged the tightly coiled muscles of his neck , staring out into the frighteningly empty expanse. 

__

He…He HAS to be here…

Confusion swimming in his moist gaze, he lowered himself to the crumbling rim of a fountain, the stony grit scraping against his fingers. 

He sat there, his focus unblinking, scared that if he were to allow the split second lapse, his Master would rush by him.

__

Because he's fast…he's the fastest person I've ever known…He can run really…really…fast.

The inner voice was riddled with adrenaline, a weary monotone afflicting the final words.

He shook himself. The lethargy was growing too heavy and lulling in his head, collecting like a thick warmth, touching the pain but unable to banish it.

Obi-Wan straightened, biting on the pale, parched skin of his bottom lip. The fresh aroma misted in the atmosphere had always reminded him of sea spray, smelling of purity and tender coolness. 

He--He told it to his Master once, when they were admiring the ancient landscape…

__

"I love it here." The youth finished with an awed reverence, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. The water's trickling streamed into his soul, cleansing wounds and quenching a primitive thirst--for peace. 

Qui-Gon smiled, the glistening waves reflecting in his kind eyes. "I do too."

Obi-Wan inhaled and had the feeling of any stress draining from his body like sand through a sieve. "When I'm not looking, I almost thin k we're on Mhall."

The elder Jedi nodded with an uncharacteristic languidness. "That was--a dream mission." He agreed fondly.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to just…live in a paradise like that?" His voice was sweet, wistful.

Qui-Gon studied the array of breathtaking statues, then turned to his apprentice-

And found that all the splendor of this room, this place that had been his sanctuary for more than four decades, could never rival the innocent beauty of Obi-Wan's face. "Nobody can live in true paradise…not in this stage of existence."

Obi-Wan looked at the man, the reverie fleeing his mind as reality smacked him into a wall-- a wall not made by gentle, breaking waves, but harsh, gleaming steel. The steel of transport doors and Temple halls, of saber hilts and scuffed flooring. He supposed, as a Jedi student, he couldn't indulge in such juvenile fantasy. 

Then callused fingertips cupped his chin, cradling the line of his jaw. 

Obi-Wan lifted his eyes.

"You know I can't lie to you, Padawan. As a Master, I've taken an oath prohibiting me from doing so."

The boy nodded.

Qui-Gon paused, taking a breath. "And even if I weren't bound by the Code, I would still tell you this truth. 

"Any life isn't easy. Whether it be a sovereign or a beggar, days can drag like shackling chains. Sometimes you feel fine, happy. Sometimes you want to burrow under your pillow and hope to never wake again."

Obi-Wan didn't suppress the fact that he was startled. He swallowed, sitting straighter. 

Qui-Gon squeezed his shoulder when he sensed the shaky surprise. "Life craves a certain balance--just as the Force does. Everyone wishes for their own personal paradise, and that's perfectly natural.

"Unless that wish blocks them from the rest of their world. I've discovered that wishing for what's unattainable can only lead to heartache."

Obi-Wan fixed shining, perplexed eyes on his mentor. "Should I not dream, Master?"

Qui-Gon shook his head, smiling sadly. "Of course you should dream, Obi-Wan. But never, in the midst of your dreams, lose sight of what you have.

"I _know that I have something that takes me as near to paradise as I can ever be."_

Obi-Wan just waited for the answer, posture relaxed by the soothing surroundings. 

"You."

The apprentice had not been expecting that. It was a spoken declaration that the familial affection had never been one-sided. But instead of erupting in joy, he simply sat, dumb with amazement. 

"I used to hope for paradise, Obi-Wan. Now I know that it's out of my reach. Out of everyone's reach. I can only live my life. And cherish the treasures I have in that life."

Obi-Wan couldn't form a coherent reply, staring up at his teacher for a stretch of time, then had to look away, tears dripping from his cheek to mingle with the fountain's water…

Creating tiny ripples that spread across the surface like an echo. 

Obi-Wan wiped quickly at his face. He hadn't realized he was even crying. 

He gazed back at the fountains, the shrouding ivy, tears leaving them trembling in his vision. "M-Master, please." The Knight begged, all amusement and frustration at this game vanished. He inhaled, his mouth shaking badly. "I kn-know you're here. Where else would you be? I've searched everywhere. I--" Obi-Wan swallowed a sour thickness in his throat. "I know they've all been lying to me. Since the beginning. Ever s-since they let you b-b-burn in that place.

"That place you didn't even kn-know. That place that wasn't home. That place _killed_ you--and that's where they let you b-burn." He whispered fiercely, disjointed memories of Naboo piercing his heart.

Flames crackling, crackling in his ears…So bright, blinding bright…

But all they left was dark. A pile of gray ash.

And the voice in his head, denying it all desperately. The voice drowned out by a much smaller one, already demanding his full attention, already reminding him his thoughts could never be his own again, because he had _Anakin _to think about, he had _Anakin_ to care for, even when his world was crashing down around him…

Obi-Wan gasped at another fresh pang in his head that drew him from his cloudy recollection. He stood, unsteadily. "I know now, Master. It didn't make any _sense._ It _couldn't_ have been real. 

"You were with me every day for so long. You beat everything that tried to hurt you. And me. So how could you die from something so _stupid?_ We were BETTER than that, Master!" He ripped a delicate tier of foliage, throwing it hard to the ground. His shouts echoed harshly. "I understand now! You see? It doesn't make ANY SENSE!"

He could barely see now, from a confusing combination of ache and tears, the scenery blending together in a slipshod watercolor. But the pain of his last, bitter days as a Padawan Learner were quite enough to fuel his helpless, devastated rage. 

"How can someone go from a strong man to a puddle of black? How?!" He asked of the man he perceived to be ducked behind a fountain, huddled under a bush. "It can't be real! WHY did I let myself think it was REAL?!"

He panted, his breath catching in sharp inhales as he paced the ground. "How could they have LIED to me?" He wondered. "They just let me feel all that…for so many years. Everyone's known. Even _Anakin_ knew and he kept it a secret!" Obi-Wan hissed, the perceived betrayal filling his body with vehemence. "I should've known it was all a trick. Trick trick trick…" One eye blinked rapidly. "Wanted to take you away from me…Why would they---"

And he knew then why such snide, slick, cruel actions were taken against him.

"I was never good enough, was I? You kept waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting…waiting…" He slipped slowly to the stone. His eyes, awash with gray, were wide with disenchantment. "For me to be better. I n-never was. Tripping over myself. Oafy-Wan. Oafy-Wan. Saying the wrong thing or doing it the wrong way. I never thought I was good enough and look! I was right!" He wailed, lowering his head to his arms, crossed and resting on his knees. For a moment, he could only weep, the tenacious shadow of inadequacy finally falling, in permanency, upon him. 

When a warm hand touched his chilled, naked skin, he jumped with a shuddering little sound. 

Anakin's face was a study in controlled calm. He didn't move, his hand held mid-air, in the space where his Master's arm had just occupied. "Master, it's alright." He said softly, simply.

Obi-Wan was already shaking his head, the angry bruises on his face, neck and slim torso catching the glare of lights, shining scarlet, blue, purple. 

Anakin dropped his hand. "Yes. I'm not going to hurt you."

The marks on his body spoke loudly of the contrary, and Obi-Wan backed away, crying earnestly, without shame. 

"I was wrong before. I shouldn't've …reacted like that. I'll _never_ do that again, Master. I promise you."

Obi-Wan's teeth clamped down on a swelled, beaten violet lip. He shook his head again, furiously. "N-No. Don't try to l-lie to me anymore. I know about everything." He rasped, in an accusing, conspiratorial whisper. "I know what all of you did!"

Anakin allowed the candid bewilderment he felt reach to his expression. "Master, I don't know what you're talking about."

"Like hell you don't!" The Jedi thundered, the child-like qualities he had displayed shed in an instant, replaced by a singular wrath. 

The apprentice refused to be intimidated by the splinters of ice riming his Master's eyes. He chose instead to remember the warmth that always glowed within Obi-Wan's spirit, a natural goodness that would reflect in his cerulean gaze.

THAT was what he was here to reclaim. THAT was what he lost sight of, when he gave over control to his anger, and pounded the last, clinging remnants of his Master's aura with wild fists.

"Master, will you at least tell me what is you think I've done? That all of us have done?" He rationalized.

Obi-Wan peered with unmasked suspicion at the dark blue eyes, muscles taut, prepared to launch into an attack, if he deemed it necessary. _He pretends he doesn't know how couldn't he know? Lies more lies tricks yes tricks tricks and lies tricks and lies. _He grabbed at his head, the scraping, hushed voices crowding his thoughts. 

Anakin swallowed, the first real tendrils of fear wrapping around his heart. _Force…_

Obi-Wan grit his teeth, trying to lift his own inner voice above the foreign chorus, to hear himself.

And when he had pushed them aside, he discovered his own mental musings were no different:

__

Lies lies lies tricks lies 

Master…where's…Master?

He breathed out, looking up at Anakin, tears spreading a renewed sheen over his eyes. "Master."

Anakin stared at him. "Master? What d' you--"

Obi-Wan wiped his forearm across his mouth, a stray string of blood spreading onto the pale flesh. He came to stand, a figure consumed by anger and pain and insurmountable grief, clad in faded sleep pants, covered in tender wounds. He started toward Anakin, slow and off-balance, although his eyes remained steadfastly focused. "You…all…took him. _You_ helped take him!"

The boy rose from his crouched position, but didn't back away from the approaching Master. "Please. Just tell me who this is. I can explain. I can even help, if you'll just tell me who you're talking about." 

Then Obi-Wan stopped. Anakin's face was becoming a hazy blur, but the features were clear. Eyes, nose, mouth. The distinct countenance he had known so long.

A face that would contort with irritation during a disagreement. That would shoot down his theories, even ignore them. 

But he had never really cared about that, had he? 

__

No. All that truly mattered to Obi-Wan was fulfilling the promise he made to Qui-Gon.

A fool's pledge.

A counterfeit oath, spoken at the murky peak of his pain.

Pain he should _never_ have felt.

Because it was _all lies._ Every last miserable second of this new life he had assumed was a stinking fabrication.

And he should have realized, should have thought, deep and hard, about this absurd situation before blindly accepting his place in it. 

If he would have considered the circumstances, he would surely have figured it out.

Anakin's visage was unmoved, and Obi-Wan studied it once more.

__

Yes…It all HAD TO HAVE been a lie! Anakin is…I'm not right to look after him…'m not good enough…No…Yes, it doesn't make sense…no sense AT ALL.

The Padawan, who at the moment looked only marginally younger than his mentor, spoke. "Master, _please._ You've--You've blocked me off. I can't feel what you're feeling. I can't _understand_ what you're feeling unless you tell me."

Obi-Wan took a step backward, his eyes narrowing from the sting of spiking moisture. _No. Can't tell him. Then he'll know and he'll tell and he'll take him away just like he did before just like they did before. _"I'm not your 'Master'." He shook his head, voice small and warbling. "You think I'm an idiot. You thought I wouldn't ever find out. 

"Didn't you?"

Anakin swallowed an upset sigh. "How can you say that? You're my Master. I've known no other, Obi-Wan, and I wouldn't want to." He risked taking a pace closer. "And I've _never_ plotted against you. I've never thought you were an idiot."

Obi-Wan actually smiled then, a lopsided grin that so emulated his usual roguish demeanor that Anakin had to fight a tightness in his chest. "Don't you think you've fed me enough lies?"

"I've never---"

"Don't try to deny it!" He yelled, his accent thick through the words. "Everyone's been lying to me since Naboo! You took him away from me! You took him away and left me with something too heavy to carry!"

And Anakin was well aware of who that cumbersome burden was, as well as who the target of this endless, crazed search was. "Obi-Wan, Master Qui-Gon was killed. He's gone." He informed him compassionately. "You were there. Isn't that proof enough?"

"NO!" Obi-Wan shouted, the intensity sending a tremble through his nearly bare body. " I DON'T BELIEVE IT ANYMORE!"

Anakin took Obi-Wan's forearm in his hand, running his thumb along the smooth, hairless skin of the underside. He looked him directly in the eye. "Master, we watched him burn. You took his remains and---"

"NO!" The Knight wrenched himself out of the gentle hold. "I don't believe it! I don't believe _you_!" And at once, all his convictions to uphold secrecy fell dead away. "It CAN'T be real! He's not gone! I can see him! I can see him and I know he's only hiding from me!"

"No, Master. He's not hiding. He's not _here._"

Obi-Wan turned away from the openly concerned face. 

__

No no I don't believe him he's lying again that's what they all do they all lie

His lips quivered, as more sobs wracked his cold frame.

__

He's not mine. He can't be I can't…everyone knows I can't. I_ know I can't. He should go away and find someone NEW. Leave me alone so I can find Master and things can go back to the way they were._

He can't be mine…I'm not good enough for that…I…

And then Obi-Wan lunged forward, into the mass of shrubs and fountains, tearing at them, searching madly for the man who could take all the agony away.


	7. Chapter Seven

"Master!" Anakin screamed, darting after him with wide, frightened eyes. 

Obi-Wan couldn't hear, due to the loud flurry of the rampage and his own desperate cries…

Or, perhaps, because he didn't _want_ to.

He mowed through the lush maze of vines, sharp, hooked thorns scraping against his arms. Stray water droplets splattered on his skin, slightly deluding the blood still running from wounds. 

"MASTER! MASTER I KNOW YOU'RE HERE!" Obi-Wan slipped on a loosened patch of rocks, going down hard on his elbows, catching his cheek on a craggy stone. 

Anakin pushed through the ivy tangles. "Master!" He went to restrain him while he was down, but Obi-Wan shoved the offending arms away with a heavy jolt of Force and a snarl. 

The young Jedi fell backward. "Sith!" He swore, leaping smoothly to his feet and rushing in pursuit again.

Obi-Wan uncovered every inch he came upon, looking for a glimpse of silvered chestnut hair or rich blue eyes, peeking out.

Yet all he found was bare, shadowed space. Cold.

He paused, back hunched, a piece of shrub gripped in his hand, sweat coursing down his face. "Master?" He called, voice shaking and tiny, unsure. Obi-Wan looked around the mangled room.

__

Where…is he?

His eyes, rimmed with red, beat with hopeless, lost emotion. "Master?" 

Anakin stopped less than three feet behind him. He watched the reckless breaths move the lacerated, bruised back. He dared not make rash movement.

Which wasn't a problem. At that moment, he wasn't certain he could have uttered a word.

"I-It's true, isn't it?" Obi-Wan whispered, tears pooling and quivering. "Y-You _want_ to hide from me. I-It's what you've always wanted. I shouldn't have tried t-to…to stop you. I should've known. 

"Why didn't I _know_?"

Anakin swallowed. "Master, do you really think Qui-Gon would do this? Hide from you?"

Obi-Wan turned. Gone was every trace of the graceful man who could display bouts of unwavering stoicism, then limitless enthusiasm in the brief pulse of a second. A countenance chiseled with soft nobility. The face of the only father Anakin hoped to know.

What stared back at the boy was a pale, dejected form with unbridled misery swimming in his gaze. A Padawan--without his Master.

And Anakin saw that there was suddenly a striking semblance between them. For he had endured so long without the teacher he knew. It could not rival the agony Obi-Wan was experiencing, but it was painful just the same. 

A thought stabbed through his mind like a ragged razor. _I can't lose him. _Anakin was startled by the revelation, hands balling tightly at his sides. _Why would I lose him?_

Then a voice entered his head, weak, but powerful in its message, velvet…_warning_.

//The Universe can't afford to lose him. Not yet. Not like this, Ani.//

He was overcome with emotion as he understood the origin of the whispered voice, feeling the depth of fear in its trembling tone, the serene wisdom he knew for such a short time in midnight blue eyes.

//Then you have to talk to him.// Anakin sent back, uncertain if his desperate words could even be heard. //He's going crazy looking for YOU.//

There was a chasm of despair and longing in the mystic reply. //I can't get through to him. There's something--thick--blocking him. It's erecting shields, even now, against outside forces, that would try to break them down. They must be broken. And I don't possess that kind of strength, young one.//

Anakin inhaled, watching his Master's tear-stained face contracting with pain.

It was the most awful muse, far more terrible than anything he had faced in his life. 

But he had to ask. Before he could move another step, he had to _know._ //Master Qui-Gon, is he…is he…dying?//

The response was heavy with heartsick dread. //Yes.//

Anakin was dumbfounded, devastated, _terrified._ But he couldn't allow it to show on his face. In his separate, imagined world, Obi-Wan was frightened enough. As steadily as possible, he questioned the Master specter. //Why? What's wrong with him?!// His heart pounded beyond control.

//I..I don't know. I only know what I can feel of him. And that's not very much…Have you felt it, Anakin?//

He hesitated, swallowing the sour rise of bile in his throat. //Just now…Before you came…I think I sensed it.// And that was the worst, damning thing of all. Before, it had been a nightmare, something that frightened him to his core. But still--there was nothing to confirm the suspicions creeping into his mind. Only his own feelings. He wasn't obligated to trust those. 

But now…the _Force_ was telling him, was screaming the truth. He had to believe that. 

//Whatever is shielding him from us is incredibly strong. Almost like it won't even recognize an attacker before it demolishes the threat. But there are things more powerful, that surpass this…Life and death, Anakin. We can sense them. We can _feel _them. That…thing can't stop the radiation of death. We've seen the dying, young Padawan. And as much as I abhor saying it--I see it in my Obi-Wan.//

Anakin couldn't halt the blistering sting of a tear in his eye. //You can't tell me what's the matter with him?//

A grinding, blinding pain. //No. Only that you haven't much time. The Force is changing, flexing…preparing for him. DON'T let him go, Ani.//

And then the apprentice was forced to smother the voice, to stifle the comfort, the only sanity in this craziness. 

He faced his Master.

He saw now what he had refused to see all along.

A form on the verge of oblivion. 

Obi-Wan blinked, cool moisture following the split-second movement. "You're afraid of me."

Anakin shook his head. "I'm not afraid of you, Master. I'm afraid _for_ you. You're very sick. And if you don't come with me, if you don't let me take care of you…you're going to die. Do you hear me?" He stalked forward, grasping the muscled upper arms, shaking him. "You'll DIE."

Obi-Wan didn't try to escape the hold. "What would that matter?" He whispered. "You've all been trying to kill me. Why not just get it over with?" His eyes stared into his apprentice's, unblinking, completely open and exposed. "You're afraid because now I know. I'm not playing your stupid, twisted game anymore, Anakin. "

Anakin flinched, his mouth unable to keep still, quivering with frantic rage. "Master, I'd never try to --"

"But you HAVE!" Obi-Wan barked. "By hiding Qui-Gon from me! You had to know how that would affect me! It _kills_ me every day!"

The boy felt his stomach lurch. It was strange to hear that name fall from his Master's lips again, the syllables changed by the unique, accented pronunciation, soft with affection.

But at the same time, it was a torture.

When Obi-Wan would speak of his slain mentor, there would be a hint of mourning and bitter, loving reminiscence. Now, he referred to the man as if he were a living, breathing being, just around the corner, without the charred hole in his middle and dead eyes.

He risked reaching out, to brush a stray, raggedly shorn piece of ginger hair from Obi-Wan's forehead. "I know you miss him, Master. I do, too. We can talk about him. Together. Would you like that?"

Obi-Wan stared at him as though he were making negotiations with a serial killer, as if he were holding a knife in his hands and Anakin was asking, oh so gently and reasonably, to borrow it. 

"Why would I want to talk _about _him, when I could be talking _to_ him?! To his face?!" 

"You can't talk to him, Master. Not like that. And you'll never be able to in any way if you keep on like this." Anakin grasped the sides of his head. "Something's inside you, isn't it? Blocking you off?"

Obi-Wan looked intensely into his eyes for a moment. "Yes." He whispered.

Anakin held him steady, hands bordering his Master's temples. "What? Tell me what it is. We can make it better." He swore.

Obi-Wan exhaled heavily from his nose, blinking. "_You're_ in my head. _You've_ been trying to mess with my thoughts. But I pushed you away--and you're afraid of me now. Because I've become stronger…"

And he ripped away from his apprentice with a strangled little scream, grasping his head.

"Master!" Anakin braced Obi-Wan's shoulders. 

__

No don't listen I can't listen 

Lying he's lying you know he's just lying I know he's only lying. 

Lying lying lying lying Master lying lying oh hurts lying…

Obi-Wan wheeled around and shoved Anakin, falling with him to the floor with a savage cry.

Anakin struggled, attempting to restrain Obi-Wan without harming him.

His eyes were clouding with gray and black spots. Obi-Wan fought without seeing, gasping, cursing loudly when tears further defiled his vision. He was scraping at whatever solidity his hands touched.

Anakin grit his teeth when he felt his blood drawn. "Master, stop!" He managed to sit up and in a burst of frightened urgency pinned Obi-Wan against his chest, tightening his arms when the Knight bucked.

He pressed his cheek to Obi-Wan's. "I'm not going to hurt you." His voice was kind, to be a comfort when he otherwise needed to be firm. "Gods, I'd never hurt you." His throat was suddenly thick; he swallowed with difficulty before continuing. "I love you, Master."

Obi-Wan shook his head and struggled against the restricting hands. 

Anakin wouldn't bend. "I love you and I want you to be alright. Okay?"

Obi-Wan clawed at his own legs in frustration, arms stiffly held. _Lies you know it you know it YOU KNOW IT._

"And Master Qui-Gon loved you too. Even if the entire Universe was trying to keep you from him, do you think he'd allow it? Would the man you knew _hide_ from you?"

Obi-Wan fought wildly again, but his energy was quickly spent. A spray of ivy was hanging in front of him, speckled with water droplets. The edges of the scene were softened, running together, green and blue.

He closed his eyes, his head dropping nearly involuntarily to Anakin's shoulder. 

A beat of silence, then, "You're sick, Master. He wouldn't leave you to suffer it without giving whatever he could give to help you."

Obi-Wan sniffled. "He-He'd bring me…"

Anakin eased his arms, rocking very slowly, wiping sweat from Obi-Wan's face. "What would he bring you?"

"One of those lilies. The ones--The ones that grow here."

Anakin lifted his eyes to gaze at the blooms, although he was already familiar with the snow-colored petals and delicate stems. "Yeah?"

"When I was sick o-or in the healing ward, he'd bring one to put n-n-next to my bed. He said it was so I'd know he was thinking of me. "

The boy smiled. He placed a hand against Obi-Wan's chest and a slower rhythm pulsated beneath his worried touch. 

Obi-Wan took a sharp breath in. "Sometimes…I'd be there s-so long the flower would start to wilt. And just when I'd start to see the first little tinges of brown, he'd bring me another to replace it."

"He cared a lot about you."

A warmth had begun to soak into the older Jedi's eyes, moist and tired. For a moment, he could revel in his Padawan's words, in a memory freshened by the crisp lilies around them. 

Then a cold seeped through, sending gooseflesh rising on his barely clad body and dread to his lulled heart.

He stared, unseeing, at the perfection encompassing him. Leaves swaying to a breeze, the fountains trickling in a soothing unison. The aged, white stone and its cracking surface. The thin streaks of gold binding it when it should have ruptured.

A sob broke from Obi-Wan. He clamped a hand over his mouth, but the sorrow intensified, his muscles tightened and shaking. To stop the cries, he bit down on a finger, sealing his eyes.

But still, he spoke. "Why's he hiding? What did I DO? I was a good Padawan. Wasn't I? Wasn't I good? Good Padawan that did what he was told and even when I didn't think he was right I went along with what he wanted because why would I know better than him why would my ideas ever be better than his I'd maybe think I was right but then he'd show me yeah he'd show me that I was wrong that I should've listened. If he was here right now I'd listen to him I'd listen to whatever he wanted to say whatever he wanted to tell me. And I'd be a good Padawan again yes I would yes yes yes I would."

It had spilled out in a rasping, fast but articulate whisper. Anakin shuddered inside. This wasn't, _couldn't_, be his Master talking. "He was really proud of you, Obi-Wan. Really proud. He wouldn't want anything to happen to you--so you need to let me help you."

__

Help me help me NOW someone wants to help me. After ALL THIS now he wants to help me. He grabbed his head. "I've been waiting so long." Obi-Wan whispered. "Waiting for someone to tell me it was all a joke."

Anakin swallowed. _Please don't say that. Please don't._ "Master, we _need_ to go."

The door cracked open. Bant walked in, fully aware of what had occurred. The syringe was in the pocket of her smock, and one pink hand drifted there.

Anakin craned his neck to look at her. "WAIT." He mouthed.

She saw the raw fear and pain in his gaze, nodded.

Obi-Wan moaned. A horrible ache was throbbing in his temples. "H-Hurts. I c-can't see him…I can't see _anything_."

Anakin pressed a kiss to the crown of his head. "We can make it better."

"Tired. Miss 'im. I miss h-him. I--" Pain erupted through him and he grunted, hands balling. "Oh..I…"

Anakin caught him before he could fall forward. "MASTER!"

Bant rushed to them, calling for the trio of healers waiting at the door, tears already standing in her pale eyes. 

The apprentice gently lowered Obi-Wan to the floor, cradling his head in his lap. "Master, Master wake up!"

But Obi-Wan didn't reply.

The healing team fled through the corridors, Bant at the lead, muttering a string of possible explanations (littered with a few uncharacteristically strong curses).

A breathing mask was strapped to Obi-Wan's mouth, his arms tethered loosely to the stretcher.

Anakin jogged beside them, his eyes never leaving his Master's face.

__

No Master. You have to be alright. You have to make it . You have to. Don't leave me DON'T LEAVE ME.

Another healer, a middle-aged human with a neat, graying beard and black eyes, turned to the apprentice. "Are you able to contact him mentally?" 

Anakin shook his head, barely able to comprehend, his lips numb. "N-No."

The man gave a curt nod, then shouted the information to the others.

Bant glanced at Anakin for a fleeting moment. 

"H-He was grabbing at his head. Something was wrong with his head." He called to her, eyes darting between the Mon Calamarian and the unconscious Knight.

After what was an endless, torturous journey, the stretcher was rolled into the hospital ward and began a quick descent down a grayish hallway.

"Do the checks!" Bant yelled to her counterparts, then stopped in front of Anakin. "You know you can't come with him in there, Ani." She said softly. Sweat shone on her forehead.

Anakin's eyes were fastened to the corridor beyond them. "I know." He murmured.

Bant took his hands. "I'll do everything I possibly can. You know that too, don't you?"

He nodded.

"Okay." She gave the cold fingers a squeeze, then jogged after the healing crew. 

Anakin stood where he was, arms dead at his sides.

__

No. Gods no.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes. He was lying against cold slate, his back flat on the rigid surface. The sky above was a dismal mixture of black and clouded gray. A drop of icy rain kissed his cheek, sliding down to dampen the fine whiskers of his beard.

For a moment, he was motionless on the unyielding pallet, transfixed by the rolling darkness. Then, he rose to his feet, his muscles and joints aching dully as he began to walk.

A blustery wind buffeted his vulnerable form, whipping shoulder-length hair in his face and biting his flesh. Tears became tiny shards that cut…cut him.

He walked faster, his bare feet slapping against the chilled, hard stone. 

The sharp breeze whistled a low, haunting aria. If he allowed his mind to focus on the tune, he could almost detect a voice, murmuring lyrics.

But he didn't want to hear the words.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest. He knew he shouldn't close his eyes, should keep alert…always on alert.

Yet, the thick pall before him was unrelenting.

So it wouldn't hurt to take a rest. He could always open them again. Always…

Bant burst through the double doors into the emergency room. Blinding lights were trained on Obi-Wan's slack form, enhancing the translucence of his skin.

She slipped on gloves, flexing her coral fingers as she moved briskly to the table. "Vitals?"

The dark-headed healer pursed his thin lips. "Dropping. He's not reacting to stigma."

"Sith." She swore. She touched Obi-Wan's forehead, sensing more than temperature, feeling more than the shape of his tender skull. "Get Master Prila. NOW."

Anakin sat on the molded plastic chair, leaning forward with his hands folded, head bowed.

__

He's dying. Master Qui-Gon said…he's dying. He inhaled, the congested fear rattling in his throat. _He can't. He can't die._

And then the grinding torture began, as images flashed through his mind. Of his Master protecting him, shielding him with solid, strong arms. Holding him and offering a smile. Correcting a minute error in his fighting stance, explaining that such small mistakes could become fatal. Tugging at the sandy Padawan braid. Laughing at bad, corny jokes.

Standing in the kitchen, early morning spilling through an open window, grinning at his sleepy apprentice who shuffled to the sofa with a grunt. 

What would he do, what in hell would he do, if he had to start the day without that teasing smile?


	8. Chapter Eight

He took a few steps before he tripped over a solid object that formed in his path. He gasped breathlessly as he descended, readying himself as best he could for the pain that would surely blossom on impact, unable to find the austere flooring amid the fog .

And was utterly shocked when his landing was softened by blades of dewy, jade grass. Obi-Wan blinked, turning to see a gentle, effulgent sun miles above him, with liquid rays that seemed to hover exclusively around his form. 

His fingers went to his shoulder, to that place they often wandered when he wasn't thinking clearly, and old habit overtook him. He wholly expected his fingers to meet an acute emptiness…and choked on a flood of tears when the silken, plaited length of his braid was caressed instead.

Obi-Wan rubbed his eyes, marveling with his mouth slightly open at the brilliant sky, so very recently eclipsed by murky desolation.

He was loathe to move from his sprawl in the soft glade. Birds chirped, flying over him, their wings spread in a melange of distinct, vibrant color. He could actually see the intricate designs their feathers comprised. 

Then, when it had grown contently silent, Obi-Wan stood. And what a sweet relief, to make the movements without the accompanying aches!

The land around him was forest. Lush, thriving forest, with hills of pure green and a pebble-lined brook. The air was laced lightly with fresh floral aroma. Each bloom he glanced as he walked was sprinkled with clear, glistening water, enhancing their beauty so that he nearly stopped to stare.

But he couldn't be slowed now. Something was pulling him. A kind force, that would ask nothing of him, except that he follow the intimate, wordless call. 

He strode through the thicket, his breaths becoming the sole sound in the unnamed world. And he was a bit startled to hear them flow so easily.

When he came to clear space, with only a mossy log and patch of violets, he was compelled to sit. To wait.

Anakin glared at his hands, a sour abhorrence tasted in the back of his throat.

__

I've done nothing. I couldn't sense…For stars' sake, I couldn't sense it.

His fingers wrenched around each other, trembling, whitening. He speared his bottom lip with a row of clenched teeth, the higher curling in a self-deprecating sneer.

__

He could die. And I did nothing. 

A voice permeated his thoughts. Quick, retreating in an instant, but reassuring.

//_You lie to yourself, young one.//_

A figure appeared in the distance, swathed in a golden afternoon shadow that blurred the features of a strong face and muscular body. 

Obi-Wan watched the towering form approach, his own aura calm, any apprehension fleeing with smooth speed, leaving him still and unafraid.

Long, bare feet sank into the thick bed of grass. The stranger walked slowly and with a remarkable grace. As he came closer, the clustered alcove of leaves shielded his countenance from the sun.

And Obi-Wan could see a pair of striking eyes, their color stolen from a glossy midnight sky. A nose with an ill-mended break along the bridge. Thin, solemn lips, surrounded by a graying chestnut beard. Hair that fell over broad shoulders, tied back with escaping hairs gleaming silver. 

He stopped a few feet away from Obi-Wan. 

For a moment, it seemed that neither would move their mouths, as a breathless silence settled, during which not even the light breeze could find the need to rustle through the foliage. 

Then, after almost ten years, Obi-Wan heard, truly heard, Qui-Gon's voice.

"What are you doing here, Obi-Wan?"

The question rattled the Knight. He blinked, rising from the petrified log. "I…I was getting away from the dark." He explained. "It was all dark and I was getting away."

Qui-Gon smiled sadly. "You were running away."

Obi-Wan paused, then nodded. "Yes. Yes, running away." He stared in genuine, wide-eyed wonder at the beloved face, raising a hand as if to trace the lines. 

But Qui-Gon stroked his fingers along the curve of Obi-Wan's cheek then, and the younger man came undone, tears cascading in a copious flow. The Master enveloped him in sturdy arms, cupping the back of his head.

"I knew I'd find you." Obi-Wan rasped. He held tight to the familiar warmth. "Everyone was telling me I was wrong…But I couldn't stop searching. I wouldn't believe them."

Qui-Gon caressed the short, ginger mane briefly, then pulled back. Obi-Wan's visage was open, revealing the extent of his joy and the tenderness of his relief. "Why were you searching for me, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan's brow crinkled. "Because---Because, Master…You were gone." He said, incredulous. "I needed to find you. I needed you."

Qui-Gon wiped the cool moisture from beneath sea-painted eyes. "I wouldn't hide from you."

Obi-Wan just looked at him, lips quivering.

"When you need me, I'm here." He placed his hand to Obi-Wan's temple. "I'm always here."

"No." Obi-Wan nearly sobbed, stepping back. "I couldn't feel you there anymore. You _weren't there._"

"I was, Obi-Wan. It was difficult. There're walls built around your mind. Walls you didn't create. They blocked me out.

"But I got through. For a second, I broke through and you heard me."

Obi-Wan shook his head. "No--"

"Yes." Qui-Gon gripped his shoulders. "You would have strangled Anakin. You would have killed him, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan stared into his eyes. "I…I had to. He's been lying to me. You have to know he's been lying to me, Master."

Qui-Gon's eyes were welled with soft azure compassion. "Why would he?"

Obi-Wan looked briefly at the sky, that had been so clear and tranquil, now eclipsed by a shroud of leaves. He curled his fingers. "_Because_ he's with them. All the Jedi. Everyone I've seen since…" He swallowed hard. "Since Naboo."

"Do you believe that these people, Jedi you've known your entire life, would design such a cruel conspiracy against you, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan's expression was hard, features that had rejoiced at the remarkable reunion carved sharply of stone. "Why not?"

Qui-Gon didn't respond, watching the emotion building within him.

The wind gusted, and Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around his naked chest. The heavy cloak draping off Qui-Gon's shoulders would have naturally been offered by the senior Jedi.

In fact, Qui-Gon would have insisted Obi-Wan accept the warmth.

But the man stood there, allowing him to endure the chill. 

"When have the Jedi ever protected me?" The Knight asked. "I was turned out. They told me I wasn't worthy of them. I wasn't _good enough._"

Qui-Gon felt a pang in his chest at the lingering pain in the dulcet voice. 

The short layer of auburn spikes moved with the wind and the Padawan braid stirred against his collarbone. "Then you took me as your apprentice. And I betrayed you." He slid the clean, interwoven locks through his fingers. "But you forgave me. _You _forgave me, while everyone else, my own friends, looked at me like I was an outsider. An intruder that didn't deserve to step foot inside their Temple." Newly shed tears gleamed somberly on his face. 

Qui-Gon touched his arm. "You betrayed no one."

Obi-Wan just blinked back another onslaught. "The whole Universe is lying to me. I _can't_ take any deceptions from you, Master."

"So you think that because of a mistake made in childhood, the Jedi would find such an enormous lie justifiable?"

"You're the best in the Order." Obi-Wan retorted, with the ghost of a proud smile. "Maybe they thought you didn't deserve to deal with a reject any longer."

Qui-Gon shook his head. "Whatever amiable traits you see in me, Obi-Wan, is the result of you. I wasn't a pleasant man before you came along. And still not a pleasant man far into your apprenticeship."

Obi-Wan huffed in tired disagreement. "You were everything I could've hoped for in life. But I wasn't worthy of it. I should've known it would only be a matter of time before someone realized how unbalanced it all was."

Qui-Gon peered deeply into his eyes, and saw a completely pacific, resigned acceptance. "And Anakin? Why would he play a part in this?"

Obi-Wan hesitated, as no easy theory could form in his mind. 

Qui-Gon bracketed his face with callused hands. "You know this isn't true, Obi-Wan."

The Knight leaned into the touch wearily, reminded of simpler days, when all he knew was a mutual respect, united affection, and the Sith were a threat long dead. "I miss you." He murmured. "I could…I could just stay. And then we wouldn't have to worry about the lies anymore. We wouldn't have to worry about anything ever again. I found you here.

"I should stay here."

A shrill, flat beep sent Bant whirling around.

"Dropping!" Someone yelled. "He's shutting down!"

And a jagged neon green light began to straighten.

Anakin gasped. 

It had been dormant for so long, paralyzed by Obi-Wan's sickness. Living without its full brilliance was heart-wrenching.

Bu then… But then, it was better than absolute dissolution.

It had still been there.

Now he could feel his Master again, yet he wasn't given a moment to rapture at the return, for the presence was rapidly changing.

Weakening.

Withering.

Tears coursed down his cheeks as Anakin realized that the cold spreading like a barren emptiness within him was proof. 

Master Qui-Gon had been right.

Obi-Wan was dying.

Qui-Gon, for a moment, only held his former apprentice, massaging the strained muscles of his back. "You can't stay here, Obi-Wan."

Obi-Wan shook his head, burying his face in the warm cloak. "I have to. Can't you see that I have to?" He quelled a shiver. "I can't leave. I can't be alone. It's so cold when I'm alone."

"But you're not alone." Qui-Gon stressed plaintively. He pulled back, so that he could watch the tearful eyes. "You have Anakin. He cares about you. He _depends_ on you, Obi-Wan."

Splinters of ice shelled over the motionless gaze. "And he's a liar."

Qui-Gon carded his hand through closely cropped hair. "If he was genuinely a liar, don't you think I would tell you?"

Obi-Wan listened guardedly, eyes rimmed with red. 

The Master didn't look away. He stared at his companion, allowing him to search for evidence of the wicked fabrications he imagined tainted the galaxy, while also projecting the infinite love he felt. "Do you believe…" His voice was so tender it wavered, "I would prevent you from staying with me, if it wasn't a necessity?"

Obi-Wan's agonized uncertainty was etched into his countenance, the pain beating. "I…I don't…"

Qui-Gon laid finger on his lips. "If the time was right, I would gladly accept the completion you would bring. To me and to the Force." He admitted mildly. "But there is a plan for each soul. Roads that must be followed. Trails we're destined to take." He traced a tear down Obi-Wan's cheek with his eyes and his hand. "My journey ended on Naboo…"

He glanced around the lush, familiar backdrop. "And now you've brought us both back there."

Obi-Wan's breath hitched. In the whirlwind of bittersweet unity, he had never noticed the telltale greenery and creamy blue sky of the remarkably beautiful planet. He flushed. "I--I…This was the last place I saw you. The last place I really saw you, Master."

"And this was the last place you walked as a Padawan."

The observation cut through Obi-Wan and his eyes closed briefly. "Yes."

Qui-Gon urged them open with a sweep of fingers along the lids. "Anakin isn't here."

Obi-Wan couldn't meet his gaze. "I know. I know he isn't."

"Are you happy he isn't, Obi-Wan?"

The man, wrapped in a childlike innocence that went beyond his spiky hair and dimpled chin, turned away. "I don't…"

His words were raw, and Qui-Gon placed his touch gently on the crown of his head. "You're sick, Obi-Wan. Your thoughts, your own beliefs, have been tampered with. Can you not feel the fever within you?"

Obi-Wan craned his neck, to look at the composed, but quietly passionate, leonine face. "If I'm sick, it's only because of the shock of revelation."

  
"No. No, Obi-Wan." He countered, startled himself by the knee-jerk switch between an unmistakably puerile demeanor and this cold maturity. "You were doubting yourself. About Anakin. You're doubting these 'truths' you've so readily accepted. I could sense it."

"Do you think I _want_ him to be a liar?!" Obi-Wan shouted. "Do you think I _want_ to despise him?!"

Qui-Gon studied his countenance closely. "Do you?"

Bant wiped the sheen of sweat shining on her salmon-colored forehead. "Okay…Okay." Her usually delicate voice was ragged. "We're getting a stronger pulse. But it's still highly unstable."

Her male counterpart stared at her. "But…we're not --how is he--"

"He's doing it himself." Bant explained, eyes brimming with astonishment and unbidden fear. "He's fighting. Obi's fighting something.

"Run another test. Maybe something'll come up now that the condition's effects are increasing." Movement at the door caught her attention and Bant looked up. 

Healing Master Prila was strapping on a breathing mask, his crater-laden, rough, dirty-crimson hands calm. The short protrusion that jutted from the back of his skull vibrated, sensing the patient's pain and danger. His eyes, nothing but black slits, focused on Bant. 

Prila was a rare breed from a planet several light years from Coruscant, a land wary of Jedi influence. As a rule, they were gifted physicians, with the single, small antennae acutely sensitive to physical trauma. The elderly alien was in high demand at local , non-profit clinics, and could only be called away to the Temple when a situation strongly warranted it.

From the stern compression of his thick, ivory lips, the interruption of his work was more than justified.

"He's fighting something alright." Prila agreed gruffly. "He's fighting himself."

Bant's heart was seized by bewildered panic. "What?"

The healer strode forward, pressing his scarred hand to Obi-Wan's forehead. For a moment, the room was at a silent standstill, save for the machines, beeping in the background. 

Then, he moved his fingers in a looser fashion along the Knight's temples. "Yes. Fighting himself."

"But how can that be? I watched him collapse, Master." Bant countered, gaze wide and desperate.

Prila glanced at her. "Well, there _is_ something inside his head. That much I could ascertain just by entering the room. It likes to hide from our technology, avoid being found on our tests. You could scan him for days straight and come up negative."

She flushed. 

"It's a very complicated condition, but the largest impact is a loss of oxygen to the brain." He looked back down at Obi-Wan's drawn, motionless face. "It's slow acting. Yes. Very slow. My guess is, it's been afflicting him for at least a year. "

"A _year_?"

Prila nodded. "These kind of things are undetectable to tests at their worst stages. In their earliest, not even the victim, not even a Jedi, could feel their pull. It's been eating gradually away at him. Hindering his brain function. As he became aware of a problem, it rapidly forced him into decline. His thoughts became more jumbled, things he'd never believe in a normal state were suddenly completely rational in his eyes. Desires and suspicions intensified."

Bant studied the alien's face, incensed that she was unable to help her friend. "He became very introverted. Avoiding others. Even his Padawan. Then he--he became violent. He said we were hiding his Master from him." She shook her head. "His Master is _dead._"

"Then he's in worse trouble than I thought." Prila told her grimly. 

Obi-Wan blinked. He stared at Qui-Gon's face, waiting for the hard expression to relent.

But the cool features wouldn't soften, etched in cool stone, unmoving.

The young Jedi swallowed. "I--He's my--_Of course_ I…"

He has expected a deep self-assurance, a natural reaction that proved all blame belonged to others, that his own basic sentiments were unchanged and faultless. 

He loved Anakin.

From the time their bond was but a thin, fledgling link, he loved him…

Yet, here he was, unable to voice what he so believed to be in his heart.

Obi-Wan's eyes were wide, mixed azure, slate and emerald, shock , wonder and misery. "H-He's my Padawan." He finally answered in a timid voice.

Qui-Gon inhaled. A sadness misted his powerful visage. "Yes, he is.

"But not by your choice."

Obi-Wan brought his arms closer around himself to guard against a burst of frosty wind. "I-I chose it."

"Perhaps, if we were speaking in strict technicality." Qui-Gon said, the sharp air whipping his long, chestnut mane. "But otherwise…_Obi-Wan,_ Anakin was forced under your tutelage. You never had a real choice."

It hurt to speak so plainly of his hasty actions. Qui-Gon couldn't deny that. But if he spared himself the guilty ache--this sweet soul had no chance of salvation. 

Obi-Wan sniffed, the pallor of his nose blushing in the growing cold. 

Qui-Gon wanted to warm the chapped face, but he couldn't move. All the Universe seemed to rest on his shoulders, crushing bones formed only on this mirage, this created plane. "You must say it, Obi-Wan. You must tell me the truth. 

"Do you hate Anakin?"

Obi-Wan seemed to stop breathing. He was perfectly still.

And was the single unchanged element of the scene, as Naboo's illustriousness twisted, darkening to a world of gray and bitter charcoal. Clouds shriveled in a sky composed of gritty tar.

Qui-Gon sealed his eyes for a fleeting moment, grief rushing through him. "Did you make yourself believe Anakin capable of such deceit…so that your hate would be justified? All these horrific lies you think were being fed to you…

"Were you really just lying to yourself, Obi-Wan?"

The Padawan braid, that had been rustling in the wind, gleaming ginger, was reduced to ash, and carried quickly away.

"Do you hate him?" Qui-Gon persisted desperately.

Obi-Wan stood there. The tears that spiked in his eyes froze to glints of ice.

He sunk to the ground, wrapping his arms around his legs, and bowing his head into the weak shelter. 

The wind transcended to a rattling, forlorn howl, as though it rose from the depths of nightmare sorrow.

As though Obi-Wan himself were screaming out to the heavens. 

But they didn't exist anymore, suffocated in the shadow. 

He couldn't help but think he belonged with them. 

Banished. Alone.

Dead.


	9. Chapter Nine

Bant pushed a stray, pink lock of hair from her eyes. "What do you mean?" She asked the physician.

Prila exhaled heavily, giving the patient's chart a quick once-over, then replacing his coarse hand on the cool forehead. "Right now, the healers are preparing to correct the disorder. Once diagnosed, it's actually quite simple to reverse…given that the patient is willing to be docile to our efforts."

"So as long as you have his cooperation, this can be fixed without him suffering anything permanent?"

The Master accepted a pile of tubes and circular sensors from another healer, and began to adhere the small, cold monitors to Obi-Wan's temple. "Well, there _will_ be residual damage. Disorientation being the most severe. Nothing to worry about.

"_But_," And now his strange eyes were grave, "The huge problem this disorder creates is paranoia. This young man isn't going to trust us. He's in a late stage of the illness, judging from his collapse. Now he's completely separated from reality, with no outside forces to interfere with his own illusions.

"You say he's been accusing others of hiding his Master from him?"

Bant nodded, feeling her apprehension rise to dizzying, nauseating levels.

Prila stepped back and motioned for the team of doctors to begin.

"You…Shouldn't you be heading the operation?" She wondered, confused.

"The others are capable. They're trained for it. Only the disease's identity eluded them before. I'll remain to oversee it, of course." He explained. "If your friend is searching for his deceased Master, bringing him back to the land of the living will be extremely difficult. That's been his focus, his singular goal, Knight Eerin. Chances are, the malady's taken him to the edge of death. He's very close to reconnecting with his mentor."

Bant glanced at her lifelong companion amid the crowd of healers. "Then how--how can we convince Obi-Wan to come back?"

Anakin leaned back against the chair, barely finding the control to breathe. His chest fluttered and his stomach was wrenching with powerful nausea. 

The disbelief was as searing as the strips of artificial lighting, beating their counterfeit, electric beams down on his tear-streaked face, reminding him coarsely of reality when all he wanted to do was shirk the weight of it. 

To pretend it wasn't happening. 

On Tatooine sometimes, when his mother didn't arrive home, and he sat alone in their dusty hovel gazing at far away, unreachable stars, he tried to create such an illusion. He imagined he was staring into the sky from somewhere with cool air and soft blankets and--above all--no chains. Shmi would return from the market carrying food, a grin spread brightly across her lips, without the dark circles beneath her eyes or the slightly red tint of her skin. 

For awhile, he was cradled in the dream.

Until the door would slide open, and she'd shuffle inside, hiding her exhaustion behind a smile, quickly wiping the sweat from her creased brow.

Anakin knew that fantasies never lasted. Not for him, at least.

__

Maybe all this..Maybe my life as a Jedi's just a fantasy. 

He thought back on the moments when Obi-Wan offered his back as a pillow as they rode a seemingly endless path. Anakin remembered the rough fur of the labored beast beneath them, how it would chafe his skin if he wasn't careful.

And his Master's tunic, warm and worn with traces of his scent.

He needed only to breathe in to know he was safe, weave his small arms around the slender middle to feel life.

Anakin would wake in a tiny campsite, hearing the crackling fire and seeing Obi-Wan's young countenance soft in sleep. 

He'd risk lying a hand on his cheek. Perhaps expecting the image to shimmer and fade, like all the other wistful reveries of his childhood.

But Obi-Wan never left him.

The apprentice stared down the hospital corridor, his eyes hollow with disenchantment, threaded with deep crimson pain.

__

Too good. It was too good to be true. 

Qui-Gon stopped beside Obi-Wan's hunched form, his hand hovering inches from the bowed head, but somehow unable to touch the russet locks. 

A cutting wind whirled around the two and it whistled a low cacophony in the Master's ears. "Don't fear telling me what's in your heart, Obi-Wan." 

Obi-Wan grasped at his head with a shuddering moan. 

Qui-Gon steeled himself, swallowing. It would be so easy to sweep him into his arms, and wait for the swell of pain to pass. Then he would be free of his fate. They would be free.

But Qui-Gon was forever devoted to the Force. He could not trifle with destiny. 

Even if such betrayal meant he could have Obi-Wan beside him again.

He _would not._

But Gods it was hard.

"Don't' fear me, Obi-Wan."

There was a sudden shake through the ground, a brief fracture that caused Obi-Wan to turn his eyes toward the other man.

"I…can't." He said hoarsely. 

And Qui-Gon knew it wasn't in response to his pleas. He crouched to his Padawan's level, taking the cold face in his hands. "What? What can't you do?"

Obi-Wan shut his eyes. Drops of frost began to melt from his lashes. "I…can't…hate him."

Prila glanced at the healing team as they began the procedure and huffed. "This disease infuriates me. Every healer is trained to reverse it, since much of the operation is identical to others. It's just the damn diagnosis…" He shook his head, the short extension that sensed pain vibrating.

Bant stared steadily at him. "Master Prila, how can we get to him?"

The alien touched her small shoulder. "To be honest, I'm not too certain. When he was lucid, he wouldn't respond to reason. Not even from his friends or his own apprentice…"

Her eyes widened. "Anakin." She breathed. "Anakin, his Padawan. Couldn't he…Couldn't he try to contact him mentally?"

Prila considered the notion for a moment, lips pursed. 

"He _did_ get through to him. Just for a few seconds, but he did. Anakin reached him through their link." Bant offered hopefully, on the brink of shaking the Master physician until he gave her the answer, the right answer, she needed. That Obi-Wan needed.

"The Padawan was able to get through while the disease blocked Kenobi?"

The Mon Calamarian nodded.

Again, his dark, permanently narrowed eyes turned to the operating table. "As they labor to correct the condition, his shields _could_ , and in all likelihood will, weaken. His thoughts'll begin to untwist, return to normalcy." When they met Bant's, there was a feeble gleam of confidence. "The Padawan could possibly reach him."

It was all she had to hear. 

Bant took off at top speed, moisture beading down her salmon cheeks and shivery optimism rivaling the fear in her heart. 

Qui-Gon didn't speak a word, framing the numb cheeks and watching Obi-Wan's eyes. 

"Something…S-Something wants me to." Obi-Wan whispered. "Inside, there's this terrible urge--to hate him. To hate and distrust him."

Qui-Gon wiped a lukewarm tear away with his thumb. "Have you…Do you think you've given in to that urge?"

Obi-Wan looked at him, his hair rippling in the strengthening winds. There was another quake within the earth, but he didn't seem to notice, remaining deathly still. Even the moisture glistening in a bitter gloss over his eyes froze.

And Obi-Wan could feel the cold, worse than before. The icy gale blasted his body like it would a crumbling statue. Slowly, pieces began to fall away under the onslaught, to drift into the gray-streaked background.

His clothes, the tattered leggings he began this journey in, were gone.

The trappings of a Jedi were erased from his form. 

Crumpled in a ball, Obi-Wan Kenobi was nothing but a man, with scars seeping from his skin to his bones, each of them uncovered.

He was, at last, exposed. 

So there was really no use in trying to grapple for a shroud to throw hastily over his heart. All that he was could be seen. 

And there wasn't a way to undo the shocking work of the winds. For an instant, he wanted to reverse it, to crawl back into the protective concealment of robes and self-deceit, because it was safe, because it was familiar. 

But the pulse of panic passed; Obi-Wan found, with more than a bit of surprise, that he would rather be vulnerable to his own emotion than smothered by delusion. 

Just as before, Qui-Gon didn't move to warm him from the winter. This time, Obi-Wan was thankful for his refrain. 

"I've lied to myself for so long." He said, with a humorless smile. "Tricked myself, somehow, into believing I could live on a different level than anyone else. That I could go through my days without feeling the same human emotions. Shutting off my natural reactions, so I could function and perform and do my duty. Do my duty with every damn step. Always centered on what must be done. What only _I_ could do." Streams started from his eyes, silvery. "Only _I_ could."

Qui-Gon touched his arm, but the customarily smooth skin was ruined by an inexplicable coarseness that wasn't present moments before, nor evident from his outward appearance. "I didn't…I mean, there wasn't enough time."

Obi-Wan sniffed, rising from the ground. "I know that. And I knew how important he was. I could feel it too."

"Yes…" Qui-Gon stopped beside him. His jade gaze flashed with pain. "But it was our last moment together. "

"Your last chance to get him trained." Obi-Wan responded dully. Qui-Gon looked unsettled, but the Knight only smiled, arms at his sides. "It's okay, Master. I can be realistic. Saying goodbye to a friend is a pale sentiment next to securing the fate of a galaxy. It's ridiculous to think otherwise. _I know_ my place in the scope of things. "

Qui-Gon grasped his arms, forgetting the rough texture of them in the fire of his anguish. "Oh Obi-Wan, you have to know it was more than that. _You_ were more than that to me."

Obi-Wan's lips were tightly compressed.

"I've loved all my apprentices. They're precious, they are the culmination of a Master's work and meaning. 

"But no one, not even Xanatos, with all his endearments and charm, could accomplish what you have." He stroked Obi-Wan's jaw with aching gentleness. "No one else became the child of my soul.

"_That,_ Obi-Wan, is something only _you_ could do."

Anakin snapped his head up when Bant barreled into the room. 

"Ani!"

He rose to meet her, his eyes wide and fearful. "What? What's happened?" His voice was riddled with dread.

She braced the sides of his face briefly. "You can help, Ani. You can help your Master." The healer didn't wait to explain. She grabbed the startled apprentice's hand and led him down the corridor. 

Obi-Wan was struck speechless by the man's intimate divulgement, his naked body and heart quivering. He knew he was a main concern of his Master, that his life was of value to the other man.

But never had he allowed himself to dream that the familial love he felt for Qui-Gon was requited.

He would never have taken it as truth, had it not been spoken by the man himself, had the words not spilled from his whiskered lips. 

Obi-Wan clamped down on his own uncontrollably trembling lips, wishing his mouth wasn't so numb. "Oh…" He shook his head. "It can't be…"

Qui-Gon gripped his hands. "_Yes_ it is. I know you have no reason to believe it." His eyes dropped for a shameful moment, then returned to their strict, desperate focus. "I never told you. I let you live your life without that most vital knowledge. You never---" He swallowed hard. "You always knew you belonged to a family, the collective family of the Jedi. But you never knew you were _my_ family.

"My son."

Obi-Wan threw himself into waiting arms, cutting through the remnants of frost with his form. "I know now."

Qui-Gon was content to hold him for a few moments.

Bant introduced Anakin quickly to Master Prila, who strode forward.

"Padawan Skywalker, I've heard much about you." He glanced at Obi-Wan's still body, where the boy's eyes were already trained. "Your Master is in the middle of treatment for his illness."

Anakin looked only partially relieved. Shadows clung to his face; his hands were balled into whitening fists. "Is he going to be alright?"

"The healers are very skilled." Prila touched his shoulder, drawing him reluctantly from the scene. "But they can't bring his mind back to reality. He's far from their reach, and from what I've been told, he's heading toward his former Master."

Anakin inhaled, his mouth looked sullen and bruised as it compressed. "But Qui-Gon's---"

"I'm aware of the man's death. Which is precisely why you must attempt to find your Master within his mind. If you can bring him back from wherever he's hiding, his chances of survival and recovery will increase _dramatically_."

Anakin didn't have to consider it. The answer fell from him before he was fully aware. "I'll do it." 


	10. Chapter Ten

Obi-Wan laid his cheek against Qui-Gon's chest, forcing thought to grant him this tiny leave, so that he could register the emotional magnitude of the moment.

He gripped the Master's back with quaking hands, pulling himself closer, as if the man were in danger of disappearing, revealing it all as another cruel illusion.

But Qui-Gon remained, just as strong and comforting as he'd been in the flush of life. 

And also completely centered on his original goal. With tinges of regret pulling at the lines of his face, Qui-Gon broke the tight embrace. 

Obi-Wan swallowed with a wet click. "Th-Thank you. Thank you for telling me."

In the sky, a single purely white patch weeded through the gray.

Qui-Gon smiled. Although the young countenance was pinched and swelled from tears, the same undeniable beauty lay beneath. No matter the level of pain or heartache, Obi-Wan retained that which made him unique, the rare qualities cherished by others that could never be totally eclipsed by melancholy. Things that became beloved to Qui-Gon's tired soul--and _almost_ caused him to throw away his plans.

Because he knew with one word, he could inspire Obi-Wan to abandon life. Their ties were so deep and old, containing an obedience and unrivaled need to please on the apprentice's part.

During their time together, as teacher and student, Obi-Wan had followed his mentor into fiery danger, bitter uncertainty.

Qui-Gon looked at the brutally open face, and knew nothing had changed. He could take Obi-Wan from the harshness of the Universe, to a home of such grace and peace, without any substantial interference.

__

But that's just it…I'd be another source trying to take him where I_ want him to go. I'd be no better than this wretched disease in that respect._ Shame engulfed his aura. _Nothing has the right to 'take' him anywhere…_

Only the Force. And the Force doesn't want him--yet.

The same wonderful aspects of Obi-Wan's character which pushed the Master toward such extreme thought suddenly threw him on the opposite side.

__

With all his gifts, he still has much to give. And he MUST be willing to give them….I can't influence him that way. He touched the dimpled chin with a vague smile. 

__

He must decide. I know that Anakin needs him…Gods how that boy needs him…But OBI-WAN has to know that.

"You deserved to know a long time ago." Qui-Gon finally spoke again. "It seems foolishness transcends even death."

Obi-Wan shook his head, threading their fingers together. 

Qui-Gon stroked the auburn hair. Tiny shards of ice began to drop from the mane, scattering on the ground and slowly melting away. "Obi-Wan, know you know you're a part of a family."

A small, happy nod.

"But a family doesn't disintegrate after a single generation. I may have--passed, but you're still here, and you have the ability to spread the love to a new age. I was father to you, Obi-Wan." He rubbed the back of the slightly warm neck. "And you can be father to Anakin, and continue the chain we created."

Obi-Wan stiffened under his hand.

Qui-Gon couldn't be daunted by the reaction. "But that'll be impossible unless you come to terms with what you're feeling. You'll never find serenity _anywhere_ until you address these problems."

Obi-Wan stared at him with wide, moist eyes--then he dropped his head into his hands, his shoulders shaking roughly.

The earth rumbled.

Master Prila turned away from Bant and Anakin, a hand going to his ruddy red temple. His antennae vibrated so fiercely he could feel it in his skull.

"Oh _Force._" He gasped. 

"What?" The two others demanded in unison.

The healer struggled to swallow. "Go to your Master, Padawan. _Right now._"

Anakin obeyed, finding Obi-Wan's limp hand through the web of physicians. "Master," He whispered, and half-wished he wasn't holding that hand, with its frigid fingers and clammy palm. _He's so cold._

Throwing an anxious but determined glance at Bant, he sealed his eyes.

The amphibious Jedi watched him for a scant moment, her pink skin looking both pale and hotly flushed, then wheeled away from the sight. 

"Why? Why're you so upset all of a sudden?" She asked Prila softly.

He couldn't tear his dark gaze from the operating table. "Young Kenobi's looking for respite--he isn't finding it."

"You're not a mind healer." Bant told him.

His shoulders slumped so slightly it was almost below her perception. "Sometimes agony is so severe, it ripples. And one can't help but feel it." Prila glimpsed her through the corner of his eye." It doesn't take a mind healer to sense that sort of pain."

Qui-Gon pressed his feet down firmly as the ground shook. 

The euphoria Obi-Wan's fevered mind designed was fracturing. All around them, the counterfeit Naboo suffered the crumbling. Grand trees with thick trunks shriveled and bent, as though bowing to the invasion in willing submission. Flowers wilted. Bright, winged insects fell. The frost had been crippling, but _this_---

Its perfection was ruined. And for once, Qui-Gon thought, defiled loveliness was justified. 

This place was a gorgeous, shimmering land, but its beauty was leeched from its creator.

Obi-Wan could never be the creature of full luminosity he was once was, as long as this world stood. 

Proof enough, when Qui-Gon looked down at him, and saw the trembling of the young, bare body, huddled in private misery.

"Obi-Wan, _please._ Let it out." He massaged a smooth, quaking shoulder. "Let it out before it destroys you."

With scarlet-washed, weepy eyes, Obi-Wan looked up at him. "Why would it matter? Why would destruction matter? H-He shouldn't have to deal with me!"

"Why?"

Obi-Wan bowed his head. "Because I didn't want to deal with _him._"

Qui-Gon saw that every word had to be forced out, and every word tore the Knight a bit more. "Why didn't you want to?" He pressed softly. _I must do this. I MUST._

"Mmmph…" Obi-Wan rubbed at his eyes, curling in his raw, icy toes. "I-I can't. Oh _Gods_…" He choked, disgust and loathing evident in his sallow visage. "I can't!" He threw his head down into the weak sanctuary of his hands again, pressing the pads of his fingers against his face. His skin began to redden.

Qui-Gon rested his wide hand against the curve of Obi-Wan's back silently, waiting.

And for awhile, only haggard, tortured sobs could be heard. What started as weeping grew more terrible, as the young man realized the depth of his pain and abhorrence. He clawed at his hair, eyes darting aimlessly, legs restless, muscles coiled.

Then time seemed to still as the anguish became quiet, though ever present in his moist gaze. He lifted his head, panting, eyes twin moons almost glowing in the spark of another discovery.

Qui-Gon steadied his touch. "Obi-Wan?"

The Knight turned to him, and such desolation marked his face that the Master could scarcely comprehend.

"Y-You." Obi-Wan rasped.

All around, shadows lengthened, drawing them into a pall.

But miraculously, Qui-Gon could see him amid the darkness. 

"You." Obi-Wan repeated. Then he launched himself at his mentor, emitting a raw growl, all traces of hope and sadness gone from him.

Anakin could easily slip into the shallow levels of his bond with Obi-Wan. The first few paths were simple to travel; since his very early days as an apprentice he'd had the ability to walk them. They were the roads that connected him to Obi-Wan, that bound them, even with a few loosening stones, through batter and hardship.

Despite all his fevered efforts, Obi-Wan couldn't disjoin himself totally.

__

You just can't be rid of me, Master. Anakin thought with a grim inner smirk.

These attachments were forged during a time of extreme emotional strain--with Anakin still smelling vaguely of Tatooine dust and Obi-Wan still haunted by ash.

Neither had been overly excited at the prospect of forming a bond. After all, it was _not _the way it was meant to be.

Anakin was promised a fresh life with Qui-Gon as a guide, not a callow apprentice so recently promoted his hair style matched that of his new Padawan. He was _supposed_ to have one of the most honored, sage Masters in the Order--and ended up under the wing of someone who mere days before was shaded by another--who warned that Anakin was dangerous.

In the span of a breath, Qui-Gon was dead, and Anakin would never be the same. 

Then again, neither would Obi-Wan.

He entered the Sith battle an apprentice, little more than a child in the eyes of the Council, and emerged a Master, with tears standing in his eyes. His reality were permanently altered.

Anakin could remember the strange expression that came over that face. A look of pained disbelief, as though he didn't understand the abrupt changes, as if he was searching unknowingly for the man who could make it right.

But then, acceptance settled onto Knight Kenobi's countenance. He would never consciously allow his façade to crack again.

The anguish was there, though. And it was a dismal sort of afternoon within the Temple when they initiated the training link.

There were problems encountered as they tried.

Obi-Wan had to lead the boy, but his mind was suffering the ache of severance with his slain mentor, in every sense, and it required enormous strength for the young man to complete the task.

Anakin had no idea how to participate. His thoughts were his own, weren't they? He didn't even _know_ Obi-Wan, and he was expected to be tied to him so personally from the start?

But soon…the two realized something, as they gingerly viewed one another's unwilling minds…

Both had loved Qui-Gon Jinn.

Both had lost him.

In that shared grief, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker found common ground. Their bond was borne largely of sorrow and need--

  
It could, therefor, withstand incredible damage and adversity.

__

Here we are again. Engulfed and threatened by misery. 

Except this time, I WILL NOT lose my Master.

Anakin moved through into deeper territory, places within Obi-Wan's mind it had taken a long while to learn. 

Mostly because Obi-Wan had taken a long while to reveal them. 

He was a private sort of person, Anakin noticed that from their initial encounters aboard the Naboo starship. Apart from polite conversation with a handmaiden or urgent dialogue with a security member, Obi-Wan kept to himself, always focused and reserved.

Anakin was startled by such an attitude. On his planet, there was rarely a moment of solitude. Everyone's aura was buzzing with something constantly: weariness, desperation, greed. To meet a man all but devoid of impatience and conceit was remarkable to Anakin. He recalled catching sight of Obi-Wan late at night, or space's equivalency to it, seated at a corner table, alone.

His eyes weren't closed, but there was an absolute stillness in them, their gaze fallen to the floor. His hands were rested on his knees, mouth solid in a line.

For a moment, the little boy wasn't sure if he was breathing, the rise and fall of the chest was so slight, so imperceptible. 

The lights were dimmed, hovering a weak glow around the Padawan's cheekbones and forehead. 

Padme was an angel, yes. Beautiful and effervescent and kind.

Then what was Obi-Wan, with his distinct brilliance and silence and luminescence? 

Anakin stayed near the doorway, watching him for a bit more, trying to name the feeling he saw in the emerald eyes, splashed with azure and rimmed in gray. 

Then, he knew. 

Obi-Wan was thinking, that was clear. And his musings were not the stuff of light dreams…

He was somber and heavy, like something was pulling him, pinning him in his seat, and he was calmly fighting his complacence.

Anakin wanted to rush over to him and shake his arms, stop whatever it was that was happening within him.

But then Padme was there, standing at Anakin's shoulder, beckoning him away.

He went with her…but a tiny piece of his heart stayed with Obi-Wan. 

After they became Master and Padawan, Anakin wished he could ask Obi-Wan what had absorbed him that evening. But he knew the man would never tell him. 

These roads he _could_ tramp were lined with intelligence, with memories of happiness and lessons learned, taught. Anakin was assured by their existence, that they weren't ruined by this invading illness. 

But when he tried to delve further, the avenues were dark, and he couldn't continue the effortless trek.

For them, it was night again.

Qui-Gon went down with a soundless gasp on the ground, Obi-Wan straddling his chest and raining punches on his face.

The darkness was thick and strangely humid, so that it was difficult to gather a breath. Qui-Gon found that he couldn't react to the assault. His throat was choked by the hot, moist air.

And Obi-Wan's screams were so loud they forbid any interference.

"It was YOU! All the time! All the time it was YOU!" He shouted, a ragged edge to his voice and a frightening power in his fists. 

It was frightening because those clenched fingers weren't the cold, pale ones of a man stricken by illness. They were the focused weapons of a man impaled by grief and resentment--who wasn't allowing the pain silence any longer. 

Obi-Wan knew what he was doing. 

When Qui-Gon caught sight of his eyes amid the darkness, they weren't brightened by fever or dimmed by acceptance. No…

These were the eyes of his apprentice. And they looked much the same.

__

Perhaps because the pain has always been there. It's just that no one's noticed it--or they have, and have been too scared to confront him. 

The object of his sad musing wasn't in the same reflective mood, completely consumed by the bloodlust pumping in his veins, the intense stillness within him that told him, without moving, without stirring, that he had waited and suffered far too much, far too long to let himself go this terrible way. There was a great conflict in Obi-Wan Kenobi's mind at that moment. A base, physical need of reciprocation, _revenge_ warring with the part of him resigned to cool passivity that he had adopted as his nature. 

But who would choose to hold fast to a poison, a venom pooled and rotting in a mouth, when they could be rid of it? When they could just spit it out?

Obi-Wan grabbed the broad shoulders, that had once been soft as a pillow after exhausting, arduous missions. "YOU! YOU'RE the reason!" He rattled them. "I wouldn't NEED to hate him! I wouldn't need to!"

"Why?"

With a shaky inhale, Obi-Wan smashed the shoulders back on the ground. He covered his head with his hands. "NO NO NO NO NO NO NO…."

Qui-Gon didn't attempt to rise or move the weight from his midsection. He didn't feel the desire to watch him rock back and forth, locked in his misery and soul's crisis. He had seen enough.

And, even as a supposed rogue and sage Master, joined with the most divine entity in the Universe, he couldn't take the sight of another tear. 

__

Is it because you love him…or because he's blaming you?

"Oh…gods, what's he doing?"

Bant looked with a tight urgency at the healer heading the operation. "What?"

"His heart rate's going crazy."

Prila crossed his arms, craggy red face chiseled in consternation. "Perhaps the apprentice has reached him by now. He could just be startled by the arrival."

Bant steepled her hands, then rested her chin on the clammy, finned fingers. _Or maybe Ani hasn't got through at all. _

Obi-Wan gripped handfuls of his hair. "NO NO NO I'M NOT HEARING THIS I'M NOT FEELING THIS NO NO I'M NOT…" His lungs were working in overdrive, panting and aching and so damn cold. Every time he breathed in, it was sharp. And when he stopped talking, he _could_ feel the pain, closing in, pulling at him with greedy fingers. 

"You do, Obi-Wan."

There was the voice. The crisp, completely certain voice. The one that reprimanded him when he erred, guided him when he faltered, whispered softly to him when he would cry. 

But not anymore. He would weep by himself. It was how it was meant to be. 

Tears pressed at his eyes, and Obi-Wan blinked in the darkness. "_Why_ are you doing this?!"

"Doing what, Obi-Wan? Trying to help?"

Obi-Wan felt through the shadow, searching for something…something that he could hurt the way he had been hurt. Someone who could know what it was to suffer…the way he had suffered…the way that someone had caused him to suffer…

"Help? You think you're _helping_? _You're_ the one who made me promise." Obi-Wan said, and his tone was dangerously even. "You threw me away for him…Then scrambled around to find me again…J-Just so I could…J-Just to…" Obi-Wan felt flesh beneath his fingers, the echoed pulse from the man's dead heart, the rise of counterfeit breath. He squeezed. 


	11. Chapter Eleven

Of course, a huge thanks to those that read and reviewed. It means a lot. -LuvEwan

Anakin felt like he was smothering. 

Not in the literal sense, of course. Here, at this height of existence, there were no real bodies. Only minds, with their own version of strength and pain and atmosphere. 

But, to a metaphorical (and no less terrifying) equivalent, Anakin was grappling for air. The landscape of Obi-Wan's thoughts were murky, filled with plumes of blackening smoke, burnt with dark fervor, billowing out over the bright purity of his Master's Force presence. He couldn't see past the viscous pall. Couldn't reach for the Force, to try and clear the polluted clouds.

But he _could _hear voices. Far-away, miles apart from him. No coherent words…no…

Anakin galvanized his trembling heart, and sought the power of the Light, weeding through the dripping darkness with determined fingers. _There is no fear…_

But oh yes there was fear. Layered around his apprehensive mind, choking him as much as the fumes, telling him to go back.

That even if he found his Master, it would be a labor made in vain. 

Anakin stared at the bottomless, limitless shadow before him, around him. For a moment, he was overcome with bewilderment. He was unsure where he was, without a single, weak beam of illumination to tell him. 

Was he within Obi-Wan's mind?

Or was he a failure, and caught in his own?

__

There…There is no fear…no fear…

There is love.

He was wrong, but he didn't stop to consider that. His mantra was flawed, according to the Code. There wasn't _supposed_ to be love--passion. Life was a rigid grid of duty, crossed with obligation, intersected again with serenity. 

__

Serenity. There is Obi-Wan. There is serenity. 

Another inaccuracy. What had happened to his set of Jedi morals?

They too seemed to have been stifled beneath the charcoal fog. Anakin felt himself detach, drifting toward a stream of gray. He flowed along it, and again was unsure whether it was in his mind or his mentor's. 

Thoughts rushed through him, like the river, as he was on it. 

__

There is Obi-Wan. There is the Force. There is Obi-Wan-serenity. There is love yes. There is love and strength and me. There is the Force and me. There is the Force and Obi-Wan and me…

There is love. 

This time, he didn't so much as acknowledge his rebellion. Wherever the crumbles of the Code were, they weren't in his thoughts, weren't in Obi-Wan's. 

But the Force was here now, breaking through just a patch of dark. Anakin latched on, forgetting in his dizzy hurry his usual need for pride. He was a subject of the Force. He followed where it took him and didn't once question its wisdom. 

He was taken through a corridor of cold and tar. The voices returned, and they reverberated off the walls, becoming more distinct as he traveled. 

Then, there was a cry--and Anakin knew from whom it was ripped. 

Amid the black, the Padawan managed to find his voice. "Master?"

Obi-Wan tightened his hands and his jaw, fingers grasping at the slightly thick column of Qui-Gon's neck. He snarled, and in the savage sound was an echo of countless tears, drained from his eyes down to his throat, harsh and comprehensive of enormous grief. 

Grief that clung to him like an incurable tumor. 

He increased the pressure of his grip, not caring that he couldn't see the face of the man he had pinned beneath him. 

No. Perhaps the remedy was right here all along, thrumming under his skin, pulsing in his fingertips. 

And in his screams. There was relief in them, too. " You threw me away, like I didn't matter. Like I didn't matter enough…to even be told beforehand." A burst of a sob, quickly controlled, though the receding moisture was gleaming in his eyes. "I could've been ready. I-I could've hidden away…But I had to hear it, for the first time, in front of the damn COUNCIL!"

No response. He couldn't detect a syllable of explanation in the air, nothing to right what was so irreparably wrong in his heart and in their past.

__

Because nothing can make it right again nothing can fix this nothing can fix it but maybe I can end it maybe I can end it and feel better…

"In front of the Council, who never thought I was good enough in the first place. They must've snickered in their heads, huh?" A horrible, melancholy smile wrenched his lips to the side. "Snickering at ME, snickering at YOU. An 'I told you so' just burning on their lips, right? 'I told you so, Master Jinn. We told you so, you dumb _old fool_.' " 

And he saw them, the cruel panoramic shot of faces, some alien, some not. The Council. Their eyes all squared and calmly leveled on him. The seemingly starless night behind them.

Obi-Wan never realized he had even seen them, at that moment. He had been so blinded by shock and…anger. 

"Even Master Yoda knew." An acrid bitterness bled into his tone, worse than before. "He knew I wasn't good enough, knew I shouldn't train Anakin. Knew that I wasn't worthy of it and I'd never be able to get past my resentment of him. At least he had the decency to tell me to my face, alone…And he wasn't even my Master. "

Again, nothing.

With a jagged cry, Obi-Wan flung Qui-Gon down, his hand flying up at the same time to touch to his own throat, where he felt painfully constricted. 

Coughing, he addressed once more the man he couldn't see, but knew to be before him. "But that's just it. He _wasn't_ my Master, was he? YOU were. YOU were my teacher, my friend, my…" He shook his head. "I didn't listen to him, because I was still listening to _you_.

"But now he's got his chance for 'I told you so', doesn't he? He told me I shouldn't train him. I had my warnings--

"But I also had my obligations. To you. To save you, your legacy and your memory. Redeem myself for the debacle of my apprenticeship." His lips quivered, his eyes narrowed from the wet sting. "To try to erase the embarrassment of your biggest, longest mistake. That's what you wanted to do, I know, with Anakin. You could've taught him, and been known as the Master of the Chosen One, with your name in all the books and monuments and _history._ Then everyone, the Council, the Temple, everyone, could just forget that you once trained someone who _wasn't_ special, who wasn't a miracle. That stumbled and was s-so full of _anger_, who couldn't've even respected the Order, who _left_ the Order like a bratty kid in a snit, then came crawling back when it was too dark out." His heart clenched up, for he was quite aware that most of the words were all but quoted from what he had heard on his arrival at the Temple after Melida/Dann. Bits of overheard conversation. Sometimes outright, blunt spite, spat into his face. 

He noticed distantly that Qui-Gon still would not react to his admissions, to his rage. 

"And now, what do they say, when they see me walk by, with Ani beside me? Trying to emulate me, like Padawans do? 

"'Every day, he screws the boy up a bit more, with his grievously undeserving example. The boy's been totally misled all along.'" Obi-Wan blinked against the motionless veil of black. "'All along'."

A few feet away, but concealed in abundant shadow, the boy heard. 

Bant felt a cold rile in her stomach as she stared in a near daze at Anakin Skywalker, seated beside his Master in the tense coil of healers. His tanned face was completely smoothed out, projecting a sense of absolute calm in the sweep of gold-dusted lashes and lax parting of his strange lips, that had always seemed to carry a tint of purple. 

A passing glance would glean only that he must be at peace, with that natural, fluid stillness of his visage, the comfortably equaled shoulders and curve of his back. 

And his hand, resting on a soft forehead, the fingers spaced to reveal slits of the paler skin tone beneath his own. For the patient was so wan and purely white he was bordering on translucence and the pacific statue beside him was bronzed. Their crossed pallor was like a stitching of light and something resembling dark. 

Bant crossed her arms, her hands ice flushed bright pink. 

But, if one stood long enough, focused keenly enough on the motionless, upright figure, they would interpret the scene far differently. 

During meditation, it was quite common for a Jedi to slip into a very deep state of communion with the Force, separating from the outside world, and even, rarely, the internal processes of thought, reaching a place where only the soul, in its unalloyed, untarnished form, existed. The soul that was cradled within the Force, and therefore cleansed by it. Obi-Wan mentioned to her, long ago, that his Master would sink (or lift, it could also be thought) to that level of being, totally in tune with the Force, wonderfully oblivious to his surroundings, anything that wasn't within the soothing core. 

Bant knew that certain Jedi could accomplish this, if only for a short while. But her friend had never been eager to accomplish it. And many times, while mourning the lost parts of him intermixed with the cinder, thrust into the Naboo night, she decided that perhaps his hesitance was caused by his fear to _not_ feel responsibility to anything save himself. For as long as she could remember, Obi-Wan took the guilt, like stones ever-piling at his feet, lifting each one, scraping himself with every touch. It hurt, she knew, but he still took them. They assured him he was sullied by imperfection, but that he had a purpose.

Obi-Wan's purpose, to his way of thinking, was to bear their weight, so that others didn't have to. 

The small healer seemed to shrink further into her smock, arms huddled against her, as the harsh musings came faster to her.

And the roughest, heaviest boulder was set at his already bleeding toes by the Sith. This rock had yellowed eyes and a smile that told him it was his fault. 

Bant wiped at her eye. 

She didn't think the Sith needed to remind Obi-Wan of _that. _From the second Qui-Gon Jinn passed, he accepted that as solid, impenetrable fact. He wasn't quick enough. He wasn't alert enough. 

The notion that had taunted her sweet companion since his early initiate days: He wasn't good enough. 

It was Obi-Wan's way, and her efforts, or Anakin's, or even Master Yoda's, would do nothing to change it. 

__

Even Master Jinn couldn't change that. She frowned at Obi-Wan, wishing she could hold his limp hand in hers. 

But over the course of these few, terrible days, that lifelong mindset _was_ altered. He began to think he was a victim of an elaborate conspiracy, a scandal that placed wrongful guilt on him.

__

That should've been my warning. He would never--

No, he would never, sanely and rationally, undergo such a radical switch in beliefs. 

She glanced up at Anakin again, identical to when she had seen him before. She wondered if Obi-Wan had taught the boy how to attempt to attain that station within the Force, detached from trouble and caressed by its gentle, coruscating light. 

But, even if he had, Anakin was not there now. His expressionless face belied the turmoil she sensed within him. He was NOT placid, he was not unified with _anything. _

There was pain in Anakin Skywalker's signature. The kind of anguish that could halt a person mid-step, and keep them cemented there. 

So he was still and quiet and, at the surface, content. 

But, inside, and in the Force, he was none of those things. 

His heart was contracting, his spirit was screaming, and his happiness was shredded. 

Bant wanted to intervene, yet she didn't think Anakin, even in this awful state, would thank her. 

He needed to overcome, to rejoin the Force in continuity, before he could so much as function again…to save himself, to save his Master.

Obi-Wan had never experienced the basic joy of that special connection his mentor so often did with the 

Force. If he was grappling for it now, with the illusions of his illness secured, he wouldn't give up without a fight. 

Bant forced herself to turn away. 

__

What's doing this to you--both? 

Gods, what can stop it? 


	12. Chapter Twelve

"And he's not just a boy, is he? He isn't just another student added to the ranks." Obi-Wan wiped haphazardly at his face, tears soaring, flickering out into the black, leaving the gritty clouds damp, as they began to swell again. "H-He's the Chosen One…The Jedi's salvation…or their damnation."

Anakin blinked with desperate rapidity as darkness formed more heavily before him, the air clotted and pregnant with it. He could barely see the outline of his Master's hunched figure. 

But…he could hear. Anakin could hear the words as they were torn from Obi-Wan's soul, and it was as if the words were his lifeblood, for as he continued, he grew weaker, gasping, choking, flinching at some unseen pain, the grim vitality of his veins drying out, seeping out his body.

The Padawan clamped his teeth down on his lip, glad that the man's face was turned away, so that he didn't have to glimpse the anemic mask that was surely there. 

It was enough that he could make out the harsh fall of blows, fisted hands rushing down to collide with…

__

Who? Who's he talking to? I haven't…I haven't heard anyone answer him…

And then there was a voice in his head, overcome with heartache, on the verge of trembling. _//Anakin.//_

Anakin inhaled sharply in surprise. _//Qui-Gon? Master Qui-Gon?//_ A beat of a second, threads loosely entwining within his slightly dazed mind. _//You're here? You're…//_

//Yes. I'm--here.//

The young apprentice detected a breathless, hoarse exhaustion in that reply. _//He's hurting you.//_

A brief burst of pain, mixed with ruefulness. _//He can't hurt me the way he's trying, Ani. I-I don't even believe he wants to…//_

//Then why do you sound…//

//It's taking considerable energy for me to be here…to help him…and now…//

Anakin swallowed, and it was a hollow sound. _//You're fading.//_

//Yes.// Ragged, relieved by the other's comprehension. _//I can't last long enough…and now that he's…He's pulling himself further…//_

//H-HE'S fading?//

//He's falling. He's falling away from all of this. And the darkness will be there, to smother any escape he might have. I tried to…bring him light, but he won't…//

Anakin thrust his arm out, to break apart a tendril of the black, but it clustered together immediately afterward. He stared into the murkiness. _//He needs light.//_

//He believes we lied to him. He wants the truth, and what he's saying…It's his truth, what he believes to be true…It's dark, but it's not evil. It's dark, because…it pains him.// Qui-Gon explained.

Anakin drew his face into his hands. _What he believes to be true…_

'Damnation'.

//Ani…// The slain Master was gentle, aware of the harsh things purged from Obi-Wan. _//Don't let yourself be pulled down too…You must be strong, Padawan. For…you know not all thoughts can be sweet…you know your own thoughts of him aren't always…But you know the truth. The truth that…that isn't dark. The beautiful truth…that exists between you.//_

His mentor's achingly candid revelations repeated in his mind, crowding him. _'Damnation.' 'Never be able to get past my resentment of him.' _

'Resentment'. 'Damnation'.

And Anakin listened, hunting miserably for that beautiful truth, when he could only find spindly black thorns. 


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Sorry for the lapse in posts. I hit a bit of a snag, which I've hopefully overcome. -LuvEwan

The lush world of a dreamscape had molded and curdled to nightmare. Both had been the manifestations of a single heart…and both were grim inspiration for that heart to cease its listless rhythm. 

In paradise, he could have release from the pain. That same chance was gaping and obvious to him in rolling dark hell. 

Yet neither could offer him what he truly wanted. In either situation, bright or clouded, he was bound by laws that were losing meaning. His comprehension of them had never been so painfully acute--or superfluous. 

Because he didn't care. He wrapped his arms around the past and was pushed away. He attacked the perpetrator of his present and…

There was nothing but scars, bleeding, seeping wounds, on his own body. 

Obi-Wan loosened his whitened fists from the phantom fabric of Qui-Gon's tunic. The Master rose, like clear smoke suddenly compacted and brought to solid life again.

Despite the heavy abuse put upon him, he was untouched by injury.

And Obi-Wan took a step backward, his knees threatening to buckle, his arm bent around his tight, bruise-mottled midsection. Cold blood stood as scarlet ice on his face. 

During the battle, Obi-Wan was distantly aware of its one-sidedness, the absence of defense on his former mentor's part. 

So how was it that _he _was now covered in jagged lacerations, in stinging gashes and purpling contusions, while Qui-Gon stood unharmed? 

"H-How?" He managed to ask, through swelled lips. Rain, somber gray tears, slid down his lashes. 

Qui-Gon looked at the bare, chalky skin in contrast with the dark wounds. He knew that agony crossed every line, even that drawn quickly by death. "Why did you do that, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan pressed his palm to his temple. "Because you deserved it…Gods…" 

"Maybe I did. For all I've done to you, maybe I did." He took a few steps forward. "Did you _want _me to be in pain? Truly, inside, did you?"

Through the mask of blood and abrasions, Obi-Wan shook his head. "N-No." He admitted weakly. 

Qui-Gon came closer, until they were a breath away from each other, their faces pale in reflection of the gray world around them. "Who did you want to hurt? Who do you really blame?"

Obi-Wan tried to look away, but found he was too drained to do even that. "I…I blame…"

His eyes were wide, gleaming moons, on the brink of winking out into perpetual darkness. "_Me._"

Anakin thought he understood suffering. While plugging his ears to drown out the cruel snap of a far-away whip and the accompanying cries, he was certain he did. 

And when he turned away from his mother for the last time, he was more than certain.

But this was a new torment for him. Never had he felt the pure obliteration of his soul, the same hands which built him up breaking him down again.

__

Damnation.

Damnation damnation damnation damnation oh damnation gods damnation damnation 

He threw his hands over his face, smothering in his palms. 

__

Damnation and resentment resentment all the time resentment ever since the beginning resentment resentment beginning…the beginning…

"Where can I put this?"

Obi-Wan pulled his eyes from the ground and offered a close-mouthed smile. "Wherever you want."

Anakin grasped the model starship in his small hands, grinning unguardedly at its clean, freshly painted exterior. He tilted it to watch the light bounce off the yellow side plate. It was his third day at the Temple, and their--their, he thought with a bigger smile--quarters were scattered with cheap moving boxes used to transfer Obi-Wan's belongings from his old room to his new one, a larger one, that still currently contained the life's treasures of Qui-Gon Jinn. 

He was honest with himself. He knew there was a part of him inside that still cried out, in great, tearful frustration, that Master Qui-Gon was meant to be HIS teacher. Obi-Wan looked like a kid_ beside Qui-Gon, and now he was teaching Anakin? _

But that mindset, that Obi-Wan was just a kid in Jedi's clothing, was collapsed by the death of the man that had championed him, a little slave boy with no special training, barely any education. The round, boyish curve of Obi-Wan's cheeks was still there, but the rest of him was changed somehow. Anakin wasn't sure how to describe it, only that it was new and completely different from the Jedi Padawan he was just beginning to know.

Now he guessed he would never know that apprentice. Only the Master, leaning against the doorframe, looking with unfocused eyes into the distance. Anakin wished he saw what Obi-Wan was seeing…because there was a faraway cast in his eyes that couldn't be caused by the limited space and landscape of the small room. It seemed that was all that ever captured Obi-Wan's attention, really captured it.

Because, when he looked at Anakin, there was…something missing. 

Maybe it was the same whole Anakin felt in his chest, a little gape that ached whenever he realized, yet again, where he was and who was gone. 

But then a dapple of sunshine hit the dark spot. This was HIS room, his own bed and model ships, his own carpeted floor to stretch out on.

And Obi-Wan was HIS Master now.

He was not accustomed to such abundant possession. Which was why he gripped the toy speeder with both hands and watched Obi-Wan long after he stopped speaking.

"Did you ever put up models?" Anakin asked, hopeful that he would inspire a more lively conversation.

Obi-Wan's eyes were wistful. "Of course. I think it might be a requirement for all young boys."

Anakin smiled, with more eagerness than the comment might have deserved. "Really? D'you have some still?"

"A few." 

Anakin resisted the urge to jump. None of his friends ever had many models, and the ones they had were usually pieced together and rusty. He bet Obi-Wan's would be much better. "Do you--Do you think I could see them?"

"Sure. They should be on the top of one of those boxes out there." He nudged his head toward the living room. 

Anakin sprinted to the small collection of containers, unable to quell his grin. Five or six models shone cleanly in the core of them, and he leaned over to pluck them from their perch. 

His arms were short, and the distance was just a few inches too long, so he went on his tiptoes, reaching out, his eyes squinting in concentration.

His fingers wrapped around one, and he smiled, pulling it from the rest.

And then he heard a shatter, followed by Obi-Wan's quick footsteps.

"What happened?" 

Anakin looked from his new Master's questioning, slightly alarmed face to the ground--where a trinket was in thin, curved glass shards, among splatters of water and white flakes. 

"Oh."

It was a delicate, soft sigh. A gasp, but calmer. Obi-Wan was surprised, but it didn't reflect on his face. He merely bit on his bottom lip. "You better go finish in your room, Anakin."

There had always been a note of warmth in Obi-Wan's voice, even when he was feeling especially morose…But now it was like someone had twisted a pocketknife in his heart, and he was beyond screaming, his strength dwindling to a hoarse whisper from the pain.

Anakin found himself biting down on his quivering lip. Mindlessly grabbing the model ship, he ran into his room.

He turned around-once-to see Obi-Wan standing, unmoved from his previous stance, his arms lax at his sides. 

He should have obeyed his mother's final words to him, he knew, as he tried to rid the image from his mind for days, weeks, years after. 

Anakin should not have looked back.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

****

Ewan's girl Thanks! **Liz** _Neither of them are bad, but are only overwhelmed by a situation and their own insecurities. _That's a very good observation. And thanks for the comments. **Athena Leigh **Indeed it's only hurting himself--and it ain't over yet, unfortunately. 

Qui-Gon watched Obi-Wan's face, storming as the sky, but motionless, a still core in the chaos. "What do you blame yourself for?"

Obi-Wan looked down at his hands, where the swelled knuckles were splotched blue and bloody red. He flexed his fingers. "For what's happened…E-Everything that's happened." His voice was a fragile note coming softly through the silence. He inhaled, forced to stop a few times during to gather enough breath. "I knew it all along. That it w-was me." He ascended his eyes to Qui-Gon. The lids were heavy, but the irises were a grim, cobalt flourish of clarity surrounding the pupils. "I knew I was the reason for everything. B-But then, I started hearing other things. In my head. At first, they sounded almost the same as what I always thought. Then after a-awhile, they were different.

"I started hearing them tell me you w-were hiding, that I could find you. So I tried. I tried so hard." He swallowed. "A-And Anakin was trying too. Trying to get me to stop. I didn't understand why he would do that. I became so _angry _with him." He paused, wiping at his face, wincing at the pain. "I wanted to be with you, because you could make everything so much easier. You could take over, like you always did and things could be more like they were---before. But Anakin wouldn't leave me alone. He started to involve other Jedi. I felt as if it w-were a betrayal. That made it simpler for me to blame him, for my resentment to be justified. Then, when I found you h-here, I could've just let go--but Anakin would hold me back. I promised to train him." He looked at his former Master. "I promised you I would train him. Letting go would break my promise…and I was so tired…my head…So then I began to blame _you_, for asking me to pledge myself to Anakin. I wanted to lose my trust, my faith in you, so I could just let go and not h-hurt anymore and not f-feel the guilt…"

His head dropped into his hands. "But it's not working anymore. Something's--changing, in my head, and I know I'm to blame for everything, for my emotions, for the way I begin to feel sometimes."

Qui-Gon gingerly touched his back. "What do you feel, Obi-Wan?"

Obi-Wan recoiled from the gentle hand. "No." He rasped. "What I said…gods what I said…And the bruises are on me. It's been me all the while. I know it. B-Because I can't be what I need to be. What everyone needs me to be. It's because of what I feel. I-I don't want to feel it…"

"But you _do_, Obi-Wan. You do the way we all do. We all feel things about other people, jealousy, anger, resentment, things we wish we wouldn't." He ran his finger along the bruise-mottled jaw. "But if we didn't, if you didn't, then we would lose what makes us human."

"N-No. I'm his Master…I can't resent h-him…I can't wish you were back, that the mission to Naboo never happened…B-Because then _he _wouldn't be here." Huge drops of tears fell from his eyes. "But if _I _wasn't here, if I just let go now, then someone else could train him, that could fulfill the prophecy as you wanted, as you both d-deserve."

Qui-Gon cupped his face. "What about what _you _deserve, Obi-Wan?" The heavens crashed above them.

Suddenly, Obi-Wan began to walk, his bare feet treading the rough, battered terrain. He walked until he broke through the rolling fog and continued into the distance.

Qui-Gon ran to follow, attempting to ignore the dwindling strength of his own steps. 

Bant put a hand to her chest, sensing the flex in the Force before the machine could confirm it. 

Prila, who had wordlessly been monitoring the work of the healing team, walked over to her. 

She noted, with an incredible rush of discord, that the antennae atop his head was moving in response to some sort of pain--outward pain. "What?"

"Well, his rapid heartbeat has slowed and they're removing much of the blockage."

There was a small measure of relief in her salmon eyes. "So his body's responding?"

"Yes. From what I can tell, the malady that was affecting his brain function is being knocked out. Which means any delirium, paranoia or psychosis should be erased along with it."

__

Erased. Thank the Force. "If Anakin can bring him safely out, he'll be alright? They'll both be alright?" She couldn't help her gaze, straying to Prila's physical sign of someone's distress. 

"As long as he can convince him to come back." Prila agreed, but his voice lacked veritable confidence. "We--We just don't know what's going on inside Knight Kenobi's head.

"Or Anakin's."

The anguish was sending Anakin careening, beyond the grips of his Master's nightmares, into the horrible familiarity of his own. 

There were so many times during his apprenticeship when he forced himself to block out a memory, to shield himself from the insecurities that could so easily dominate his mind. 

Whenever he caught Obi-Wan holding a holocube of Qui-Gon, saw the dimmed aura that was always so beautifully effervescent, and knew, in a buried section of his heart, that his hand was banking that flame. 

Or when Obi-Wan struggled to impart a particular shred of wisdom, not quite sure how to explain it to his young student, his brows knitting. Anakin felt a needling, an uneasiness, a thought of _'I'm not supposed to be here'. _And he was always afraid that Obi-Wan was privately lamenting that same fact. 

__

He was. He IS. I'm a damnation. HIS damnation, the reason…the reason why he can't be FREE…

And HE'S the reason I can't be free.

A glacial stone was pitched inside him. _Are we holding each other back? _

Anakin went very still, his thoughts rolling. _Is our partnership wrong? _

//Anakin.//

The Padawan felt a deep gurgle of shame, a heat in his cheeks, for thinking such harmful thoughts.

Then there was a dark shadow that fell over him, cast over his soul. _No different than what HE'S thinking. _A comforting shade, whispering that his musings were merited, and he could very well be right in his ideas. 

__

//Anakin.// Qui-Gon called again, more insistently. _//I can't hold on long…I can only say you must find him quickly. I CAN'T give him what you can.//_

And then the ragged voice was gone.

Obi-Wan moved through the dense atmosphere, his face waxen, his arms loose at his sides. For so long, his heart had trembled when it should have beat, and now, for perhaps the first time in his life, he could hear the reverberations echoing in his head, steady and strong. 

He had never been certain of anything. Not of the devotion or dedication of others--and never of himself. For three decades he waited for the traces of doubt to lift from the eyes of his instructors, his friends, his Master.

Even Anakin.

But it didn't matter how far into the flames he jumped, what burdens he accepted. 

They knew. They _all knew _the private shame he carried. They were aware of the weakness of his heart. The doubt haunting his own eyes. 

Now, his conviction was absolute, and how ironic that it came, finally, at this moment. 

Obi-Wan stopped and wiped the last tear from his eye. Ahead of him was a wall of gray cloud. Beneath him, past the crumbled edge of the cliff on which he stood, was an abyss. 

Anakin sat with his knees drawn up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them tight, pressing them closer to his body. His lips were a sullen, bruised purple, and they quivered slightly in the twilight. 

__

'I can't hold on long.'

The words gnawed at him. For Obi-Wan, the supposed return of Qui-Gon Jinn was a blissful, rapturous event. He thought his responsibilities could be shed, that all his worries would spiral off into nonexistence. 

It was ridiculous to believe that a single man could bring about such change, with merely his presence. 

Anakin looked into the darkness, panting, tears streaming down his cheeks. _But he did. For me--he did._

And he wants me to save Obi-Wan.

Combating a numbness that had spread to his body, the Padawan stood. _For him--I will._

He never saw me as a damnation…He never thought I ruined his life.

At the outside fringe of the ledge, Qui-Gon stood perfectly still, his hair falling in a silver-threaded drape around his face and shoulders. "Obi-Wan." He called softly, so as not to jar the Knight in his precarious position, but with an underlying current of firmness. "Come away from there." In his head, he knew this was a created plane, that the sharp rocks and dark clouds were a vivid projection of Obi-Wan's emotions--but in his soul, Qui-Gon was convinced that Obi-Wan's feet were his own, and they could very well carry him off into the shadowed pit below--and there would be no chance to wake from the nightmare anymore.

"Obi-Wan--Just come away from there."

The young man's shoulders were slumped, the skin bleached and awash with gray rain. Obi-Wan turned his head slightly, to align his jaw with them. He breathed out. "You've helped me, Qui-Gon. You helped me to realize what I've needed to do all along. I know I've never had faith in myself…that almost everything I've done is because I've held faith in someone else. Even when I trusted myself to accomplish something--I think it was because I trusted those who taught me. 

"But I don't resent you for helping me this time. Because I've ultimately brought myself here. You want me to stay--and I know I _need_ to leave."

Qui-Gon shook his head. "No. Obi-Wan, no---"

Obi-Wan looked at the face of his mentor, recovered from aged cinder and cleansed of ash, saw the piercing blue eyes that, even after years, could still puncture his heart. He smiled. "I know this is right. And when I think about it, I didn't require mind-altering illness or your words or Anakin's. I've known from the beginning, since before the first bead was worked into my braid."

Qui-Gon took a step closer. "No."

"I've known, but I beat the voice down, so I could go on. But it was still there, always there in my head. Now I can't ignore it anymore. You _know _this is right. You know this is what I _deserve_."

"_No one _deserves an eternity spent sunk into a void." The Master swore. "Especially you, Obi-Wan. For all the lives you've saved, all the lives you ushered into the light from the darkness, you don't deserve to be thrown into that darkness."

"I was only breaking even." Obi-Wan whispered. A drop of rain glistened on his bottom lip. "But I can never possess a true balance."

"This _WON'T_ solve anything."

Obi-Wan swallowed. "But it will, Qui-Gon." He looked down at the bottomless pall. "Because there will be nothing left to solve." He took a step and Qui-Gon moved, his face grave.

"You can't, Obi-Wan. If you go, we'll never find each other again. It isn't the Force you'll fall to."

"Don't do this. Just let me go. Let me do something, for once, without questioning myself." Obi-Wan took a shaking breath. "Let me do what I know is right."

"And what about me?"

A coarse, deep voice caused Obi-Wan to turn around. 

Anakin stood a few paces behind Qui-Gon. His face was outlined in shadow, and he could barely control the intense quiver of his lips. The boy had never felt so angry--or betrayed. "Am I a problem that will just disappear, that you won't have to _'solve'_?"

In ear-shattering unison, lightning and thunder exploded within the ruined sky.

Obi-Wan blinked. "A-Anakin?"

Qui-Gon glanced at the Padawan. Fury was rolling off the youth in heated waves and he sealed his eyes in despair. _//He isn't here because of you, Ani. He believes he's doing this FOR you.//_

Anakin's eyes, a roiling, dark blue, flickered over to the apparition of the man he had known, all too briefly, once. _//I know.//_ In their short days together, Anakin had never known what if was like to lie to the great Master.

He knew now. 

__

//Ani I…can't stay anymore.// Qui-Gon's message was tethered down by weariness. _//I want to. You must know that I do. For you--and for him. But it's taken so much…//_

//I know, Master.// Anakin responded, without thinking. He reached out and squeezed the fading hand. _//You can go. It's alright. I'll take care of him for you.//_

Qui-Gon smiled at him, then at Obi-Wan.

Obi-Wan heard distinct words enter his mind, a comforting warmth--that winked out as Qui-Gon Jinn's form vanished, to mingle with the dismal shades of night. 

An involuntary gasp escaped Obi-Wan and a huge, abiding sadness welled in his eyes. 

For the second time in his life, the arrival of Anakin Skywalker had marked the death of Qui-Gon Jinn. 


	15. Chapter Fifteen

****

Ewan's girl _I wasn't sure when Obi Wan was searching for Qui Gon, but really this is such an emotional story that works on several levels. _I'm just glad it's working on at least one! **Athena** Thank you. 

Anakin looked at the man who had once been the steady center of his existence, and an emptiness rose in his stomach. "He's gone again." He said softly to his Master, walking through the grit and stone. "But he's not gone. Not really. Now we both know that.

"He wouldn't want you to do this, Obi-Wan. He came here, he used everything he had to find you. Don't make it a worthless effort--don't do this."

Obi-Wan's eyes were still fixed to the spot where Qui-Gon had been a moment before. "I can't be led by him anymore. I don't want---I don't want anything but _nothing_."

Anakin inhaled the thick air. "Isn't that what you have now?"

Obi-Wan looked up, dried lines of tears on his bruised face. 

"Isn't that what you have now, _Master_, with me? Now that Qui-Gon's left--all you have is me--and that must not amount to much." Anakin forced himself to swallow through the shaky lump in his throat. "You must have nothing left to live for."

The Knight shook his head and wiped his forearm across his eyes. "No, Anakin." He whispered. "You _are_ worth living for--you're worth more than you can understand--and that's why I _have to _do this."

Anakin looked down. "Because I'm the Chosen One. That's my worth. Dying would take away your responsibilities to me."

"It will _save _you, Anakin."

Anakin's eyes trailed over the dismal panorama. His lips were clamped together, and his chest began to heave.

Breathing raggedly, the apprentice ran forward, until he was standing on the very edge of the cliff. He stared at his Master with unwavering defiance. He shook his head. "Then I don't want to be saved." And then he moved to face the gaping maw that pooled out into infinity. 

Obi-Wan didn't move, but a hard swallow was visible down his pale neck. "Ani…"

Anakin refused his instinct to turn around. _Let him know how it feels. _"If this is what it takes to save me, from whatever threat that you alone see, then I don't want to be rescued." The darkness haunting his eyes matched that of the pit below him. "I'd rather fall."

"And lose your life? Lose everyone who loves you?" 

"That didn't seem to bother you." The accusation was a low rasp.

Obi-Wan shut his eyes ."That's different."

Anakin snorted quietly, glancing over his shoulder. "Why? Because no one loves _you_?" He felt bitterness spread throughout his body. "Or because those who love you aren't…worth staying for?" 

"You know that's not true, Anakin."

"And how would I know that?" Heat smoldered beneath his skin. "After all, why would you go on living in _hell_ for someone you just consider a damnation anyway?" 

Obi-Wan's short, sharp intake of air was masked by a gust of wind. "No…Ani…I-I don't believe that."

"But you said it. _Master._"

"No--"

"I didn't _imagine _it!" Anakin shouted. Shards of tears stood in his eyes. "Gods, even in my darkest dreams I never imagined you would think of me like that. But I guess you can't be as perfect as everyone thinks you are, you can't be the guileless martyr you _want _to be."

"I-I know I said it." Obi-Wan briefly looked at the ground. "But I didn't _believe _it. That came from my head, from the disease--not my heart."

"S-So this idea was just randomly created by your illness?" The boy half-mocked.

"_Yes._"

"And when you said you weren't ready to train me, that you wouldn't be able to _overcome_ your resentment of me, was that a crazy lie too?" Fragmented memories flashed through his subconscious. Obi-Wan standing over the shattered trinket, going to bed early if only to close himself away, looking--longingly?--into the distance, and a thousand other moments that disproved his current claims. "Because _I _don't believe it."

"I-I was scared." Obi-Wan whispered. "I was only an apprentice myself and it was v-very difficult for me to see beyond my grief."

"Grief for _what_? Was it only for Qui-Gon? Or because you gave up your life to train me?"

"I didn't give up my life." Obi-Wan said breathlessly. "But training you--It changed so many things _in_ my life. And I could never--I can never--forget that I'm training you because my Master is dead."

A touch brushed across Anakin's arm and shoulder blade. It was mild, with a tenderness he hadn't felt in so long, and he was suddenly, strongly compelled to turn around. 

"I'm training you because I was too late." Obi-Wan breathed in, a dark contusion shining on his cheekbone. "After I killed…that d-damn Sith, Qui-Gon told me it was too late. _I _was too late. If I had been faster, quicker, _better_, I could've saved him, and you would have the teacher you were meant to have."

Anakin stared into the pained eyes. "If I was meant to have Qui-Gon as a Master--he would _be_ my Master. You can't blame yourself for destiny." And then his own eyes widened, within his chest, in the deep ache of his spirit.

__

Destiny. Destiny that's…that's it. That's why Obi-Wan is MY Master.

And why I shouldn't save him for Qui-Gon.

I should save him because…he shouldn't go. Because I need him.

Because I can't blame HIM for destiny either.

Three Years Earlier

__

Anakin drew his knees against his chest, wove his arms around them and rested his chin there. The reserve was breathtaking, a flowered mountainside with a shimmering waterfall, and far-off hills of thick jade. 

It was meant to be a miniature get away, a small escape from the rigors of the Temple, spread over a few days. 

But the initial happiness had quickly faded for Anakin. It wasn't that the surroundings weren't beautiful, that the atmosphere wasn't clean and soothing--but his thoughts were clouding this little indulgence and he almost wished he was back under the Jedi roof, his mind regulated by schedule and training. 

This freedom was allowing stray musings to distract him, to bring dark clusters to his vision where there was meant to be shining sun and purely blue skies. 

He couldn't understand the gloom that settled over him, that made his feet leaden and prevented him from exploring the lush paradise. 

The apprentice sat on a rocky ledge overlooking the sheet of rippling water, and with dulled eyes watched dusk transform the reserve. 

"Need some company?"

Anakin glanced up and smiled. "Hi."

Obi-Wan smiled in return, then sat beside his apprentice, his legs dangling off the side with his arms splayed out behind to support him. "You weren't at evening meal." 

Anakin replaced his chin. "Sorry, Master. I just wasn't hungry."

"What?" The Knight's mouth curled in a crooked grin. "I don't understand. You _weren't hungry? Should I alert the closest medical facility?"_

Anakin snorted, still staring at the orange-tinted horizon. 

Obi-Wan sobered. He studied his student for a moment. "Somehow I don't think a lacking appetite was to blame."

There was no answer from Anakin, and Obi-Wan sat upright. The mist from the waterfall mingled with their hair, droplets sprayed onto the dirt. "And I don't think one dinner is all you've missed here."

Anakin turned his head. "Everything's great here, Master. I can sleep in, go wherever I want--"

"Hide away and brood." Obi-Wan finished for him.

Anakin darted his focus to the rocks and shrubs, so he didn't have to acknowledge the knowing look on his Master's face, the one that always had the distinct ability to burn a lasting mark on his heart. How was it that Obi-Wan possessed this innate talent for reading even the most underdeveloped passages scribed by a mind, to pay attention to every last word?

Sometimes…Anakin could admit, he was irritated by the lengths his Master could reach.

"I'm not reprimanding you, Padawan." Obi-Wan mentioned quietly. "When one is being censured, they are less likely to take in what they're being told. More often they zero in on emotion and close off their ears in favor of their hurting heart. " With two fingers, he touched Anakin's chin, until the youth lifted his head and met the Knight's clear eyes, color akin to the sapphire spectacle pouring from the mountaintop to the river below, catching a pale green hue in the waves.

Anakin would later think that maybe his Master could identify with the shifting waters, reflecting the sky, or the grassy hills--but never revealing a natural-interior-shade. 

At least not when Anakin was looking.

"Firstly, you've done nothing wrong." His Master continued. "And secondly, how can we set things right if you close those ears of yours?"

Anakin gave a small smile. "What's there to set right? I'm not angry with you."

"Well, that's always_ a pleasure to hear. But you're obviously upset about something. Or else you'd be stuffing your face considerably right now."_

The apprentice shrugged. "I--don't know. I just get this feeling every now and then. Like I shouldn't be happy."

Obi-Wan's brows fell into a troubled line. 

"And I know I haven't done anything wrong. But that doesn't make it go away."

For a full minute, there was silence permeated only by the buzz of twilight insects. Then, "Close your eyes."

Anakin hesitated, but his Master's expression was one of absolute resolve, so he dutifully obeyed, trying to control his breathing as he did so.

"Now, what's the first thing you see surfacing from your thoughts?"

Anakin sifted through his surprise and reluctance, sinking into a place of great personal intimacy-and a face appeared. He wasn't shocked or dismayed by the warm brown eyes, the smooth hair swept into a bun, the sun-blasted skin that was nevertheless the most comforting touch in the Universe.

"Mom. M-My mom."

Obi-Wan's voice was barely a whisper to Anakin. "What do you feel when you see her?"

"I--I'm glad to see her…every time I see her I know I haven't forgotten her…But then I remember where she is…so far away…and still…in chains." His breaths came faster. "In chains…while I'm…f-free. Working hard all day while I'm lounging around on vacation."

The tone was more brittle with the final sentence, and Obi-Wan laid a hand on Anakin's knee. "The opportunities you've been given are the reason she can survive, Ani. Would she want you to share in the pain she endures?"

"N-No."

"Open your eyes."

Anakin slowly acquiesced, ashamed by the gloss over his eyes that hadn't been there before. 

Obi-Wan gave no indication that he noticed. "I can't tell you anything that will make the pain disappear. Not forever. I can't fully relate to what you're going through and I can't go through it for you--although I wish with every fiber that I could." He paused, to breathe in, collecting air--and courage. "But I can_ tell you that, after my Master died, I was horrified if I ever so much as smiled. He's been gone awhile now…But that doesn't mean those emotions fade totally. There are moments when I hate myself for smiling, or laughing, or having a good time, when he can't be beside me, enjoying the mirth as well._

"But, just as you want your mother to be freed and happy, she wants the same for you." He squeezed the boy's shoulder. "I _want you to be happy."_

Anakin leaned into his outstretched arm. "It doesn't make the pain disappear." He whispered, then looked up. "But it makes everything a lot more bearable."

Obi-Wan smiled. "Maybe we can do better than that." He leaped to his feet, dragging Anakin up with him. He sprinted down the hills, then jumped gracelessly into the waters.

Anakin waited for the dripping head to surface before he, with a wild grin, shot down after him.

"_You_'re my Master, Obi-Wan." Anakin looked around. "This place won't help you, it won't save me." He reached for Obi-Wan's hand, and he held it tightly, until his trembled. "It will destroy us both."

Obi-Wan gazed at him, his countenance wearied and his sprit as battered as his body--and then there was a fragile patch of light, spilling from the gray sky in a radiant beam, falling diagonal across his face. With a weak gasp, he pulled Anakin to him.

Anakin wrapped his arms around his Master, not caring about the injuries to either form. The pain of their relationship couldn't rival the rightness of it, the natural affection that flooded their minds. 

"I'm sorry. I just--I wasn't in control." Obi-Wan apologized in an unsteady voice against Anakin's shoulder.

As the Master's knees gave way, the apprentice steadied his hold, lowering them both to the ground. "Shh. You don't have to explain anymore." Anakin touched his forehead. "I understand, Master. It wasn't you." 

"'m sorry." 

Anakin draped his cloak around his teacher's shivering body. "Shh. You don't have to say anything." He drew Obi-Wan's head against his chest. "Just rest. Just rest, Master."

Obi-Wan closed his eyes, and at the same instant the dream world became a haze.

Anakin stroked the blood-matted hair. "Everything's alright now." As he sensed Obi-Wan surrender to sleep, he watched the ledge rumble, then grow, stretching farther into the residual darkness.

If ever it was walked again, it would take far longer to step upon the edge.

And then, just when the body went lax, Anakin too, was gone. 

__

Pink.

A strange thing to wake to. A blur of pastel in his periphery, and Anakin blinked, somewhat expecting to emerge in another dream, with floating pink clouds and a smeared gray sky…

He blinked again, squeezing his eyes shut and grabbing for sane convergence--

"C'mon, Ani." A voice beckoned him from the puff of pink. "You've slept long enough."

Anakin surged to a sitting position, clarity resuming all at once in his eyes and head. "Bant?"

She sat beside him on the cot. "Relax. You did an amazing thing, Anakin."

He looked searchingly at her salmon-flushed face, then beyond to the white walls and the curtain that separated him from the rest of the room. "He's alright then?" His hands shook. "He came back okay?"

Bant cupped his cheek. "From what we can tell, he's just fine, Ani. Exhausted, but fine. How are you?"

"Pretty much under that same category." He smiled, a bit overwhelmed. "Has Master…woken up yet?"

"Not yet. It could be a while longer before he's rejuvenated enough." She dropped her eyes to her hands, then brought them to Anakin. "What did you do? To bring him back from…wherever he was?"

Anakin shrugged. "I told him what I felt."

"You don't have to answer this, if it's uncomfortable for you, but I just wanted to…What was he doing? For, gods it felt like eternity, he was in serious danger of being lost. His vitals dipped and I almost thought…" She had to swallow a sudden sob. "I thought that we _did _lose him."

Anakin remembered the hopelessness in his Master's face, the terrible resolve that so nearly ended his life. He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't--I can't tell you. Not yet, anyway."

Bant's aura was awash with compassion. "That's alright. But I'll be here, whenever you're ready."

He entwined his fingers loosely with hers. "Thanks." Anakin glanced at the curtain and could guess what lay on the other side. "Can I see him?"

"Sure. He might not hear you, but it'll do him good to be in your presence." She patted the back of his hand. "It already has."

Anakin soaked in the warmth of her sentiment, let it fill him after the visceral void that had consumed his being in the nightmare. "He wasn't himself, Bant." He said huskily. "But then, parts of him were. It was…" 

"I know. From what I saw--I know, Ani. But _he _won't know."

Anakin's forehead crinkled. "He won't?"

She shook her head. "Maybe a shred or two, but overall, this entire thing will never have happened to him. And since it began long before anyone started to notice the change, he's lost far more than memories of breaking out of the hospital or looking for Qui-Gon."

"Should we, I mean are we going to, tell him?"

She studied the seamless walls thoughtfully. "Like you said, Ani. He wasn't himself. He didn't act like himself and--" Bant turned to Anakin. "He did things that, in reality, he would abhor. He hurt me, he hurt you, in more than a physical sense. Unless those memories have some value, I think telling him about them would do more harm than good."

She stood. "But it's your decision. Only you know what happened." Gently, "I'll check in a little later."

Anakin muttered an absent 'good-bye', his gaze straying to the curtain. 

__

Unless those memories have some value…

"And what if they do?" He wondered through a sigh.

For an hour, Anakin sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes trained to the slit between the curtain and the wall. Even now, with all the past turmoil and anger between them, there was no way to secure a permanent division, there was always that connection-however weak or strong.

But there were times when that unfailing link disconcerted him-- and it wasn't merely the question of privacy.

He looked at the strip of shadow, knew that his Master's light was beyond it. 

What would happen when it wasn't?

Anakin rushed to his feet. _No. I'm not going to think of that. _He clutched a handful of hair. _I have enough to think about._

Taking a moment to calm himself, he allowed his shoulders to loosen and some of the tension eased in his back. He was a breath away from the curtain and could hear the soft beeping muted by it. 

__

We were understanding each other. The white drape stood motionless in front of him. He placed his hand against it. _And now he won't know. Unless I tell him…he won't know any of it. He won't know the secrets we shared--_

Or the pain. He won't know how I--how I hurt him. He won't remember the bruises.

Anakin leveled his eyes. _And he doesn't need to._ _Bant's right. It won't do any good._

The young Jedi compressed his lips, walked through the slender parting of the curtain, all the while trying to convince himself he was doing what was necessary, shielding his Master--and himself--from unneeded heartache. 

But, in a place within him he had forced into silence, he was aware that leaving Obi-Wan oblivious would help no one. 

__

In a flourish of white, streaming with gray, he opened his eyes. Thin, creamy fingers of the atmosphere molded around his arms, delicately, pulling him.

Even if he wanted to fight the touch, it was impossible. All his energy had been expelled, he knew, and the last hints of strength had been siphoned to keeping his vision somewhat clear. 

So he blinked. Then he blinked again. 

He didn't know where he was. He had never experienced a place like this before. The only breaths were his own, quick and soft. The only living thing was himself--his heartbeat was solitary, and he couldn't hear the sound of another, beside him or in the distance.

Because he was sure he WOULD be able to hear it. In the unblemished silence, he was convinced he would detect even the crisp flutter of insect wings. 

Warm fell across his forehead and he tried to look up.

"I knew it." The words were as tender as the cool, shifting white, as the caress of his face. 

He smiled. No one was there, in tangible form--but spirits were never made of flesh.

"I knew you would make it. For awhile…you almost had me believing you couldn't…but I was forgetting who you are."

"Master…" He didn't know what had inspired that, he didn't know why either of them were together in the dreamy cloud, but he felt the rapture of hearing Qui-Gon again. 

"And now you've forgotten."

"Forgotten what?" He wondered, in almost a slur. 

Qui-Gon stroked his cheek. "It isn't your fault. I only wish…you could remember."

He leaned his head in the silken cushion. His eyelids were falling to the lull of the voice and the heaviness of his body. "I'm so…tired."

A wraith-like touch ghosted across his temple. "I know. I wanted to be…here….when you went back…I had to leave so soon…I wanted to say good-bye…but I see now that Anakin's taken care of it for me."

Good-bye?

An image of crouching down on the icy generator floor passed through his mind.

Good-bye.

He smiled. "Good-bye…Master…I'll see you."

"When it's time." Qui-Gon whispered, as the pale surroundings faded. "When it's time, my Padawan."

The Master watched his apprentice disappear into the grasp of reality. He knew Obi-Wan had not understood him, but it had taken more than he cared to think to return again, even in minimal form. There wasn't time now to explain, so he was forced to heed his own words, and, like Obi-Wan, he would have to wait.


	16. Conclusion

Anakin stared at the tip of his boot, shining dully in the meager hospital light. So far, he had resisted the urge to tap his foot against the tile. He was a Jedi, and as such, demonstrations of impatience were severely frowned upon. 

Especially by Obi-Wan Kenobi. But little did the esteemed members of the Temple know that the cool, dignified Master, when in the privacy of his own quarters, shook one leg incessantly while sitting in his armchair. 

But, although the apprentice continued to struggle in a state of anxiety, he would not allow it to be noticed by anyone.

Which was why the inside of his mouth was raw from chewing. 

After more than two days, this room still housed conscious Padawan and unconscious Master. Anakin's eyes were held by Obi-Wan's face, waiting for that twitch of approaching cognizance, for the stir that would, at last, bring lucidity to the man. 

But that movement had yet to be made. 

Bant came and went, suggesting Anakin make use of the cot when the sun began to fade, urging him to take food when he knew his cold stomach would revolt. 

She had not peeked in the room for three hours. He was glad to know she understood his need to stay. Because, in all honesty, he was too tired to argue.

Sighing, Anakin dropped his gaze to the boot again.

"…when…."

The young man immediately leaned forward, calling his Master's name softly.

Obi-Wan's eyes pulsed from beneath the lids. He pursed his lips. "W-When?"

His voice was cracking, and Anakin stroked the strangely shorn hair, trying to calm him. "It's alright, Master. I'm here." With a note of tired hope, "Wake up now."

A breathy sigh, and then Obi-Wan's forehead crinkled. "An…Anakin?"

Anakin smiled. "Yeah. Yeah, it's me."

"When?"

Anakin rubbed his hand. "When what?" His heart thundered in his ears. 

"When…see…"

The Padawan mustered an encouraging smile, although he was alarmed by Obi-Wan's fogginess. After all this time, the days of watching his sole family deteriorate, feeling the warmth drain--

He just wanted it to be over. He wanted Obi-Wan's eyes to be clear, his voice strong..

"It's okay, Master." Anakin whispered.

…He wanted their roles to settle into normalcy. He had longed for independence, but now he knew it wasn't worth it. 

He would rather his Master be powerful, and he still a student, than endure another reversal like this. 

Obi-Wan blinked. His eyes, bleary slits, moved just beyond Anakin, then flared with recognition. "H-Healers?"

Anakin nodded. "Yeah."

Obi-Wan swallowed. It never came as a complete surprise when any Jedi found themselves under the close care of the Temple medical staff, but every instance was jarring. "How…How long?"

"About three days." Anakin smoothed the damp bristles of hair. His lips began to tremble, and his resolve collapsed at the same moment he dropped his head beside Obi-Wan's, and drew his Master into a tight, shaky embrace. _But it's been so much longer. _He buried his face in the warm skin of his teacher's neck, where his tears slid down. 

Obi-Wan wordlessly accepted the embrace, sending a few tendrils of comfort through his Force. "What happened?" He asked, once the boy seemed composed.

Anakin drew back. His hands were clammy, wiping across his eyes, as he summoned the courage needed to speak the next words. "Do…um, do you remember anything?"

Obi-Wan looked up at him. Troubled clouds passed over the landscape of his face. He reached out and lightly trained his fingers down the Padawan braid. He stopped when he touched on a yellow ceramic bead. "When did you get this?"

Anakin's heart sank. _Bant was right. _"Uh," He cleared his throat, "Four months ago." His answer was hoarse. A part of him had held to the idea that the odds would bend over backward, would suddenly swerve to their favor. Grant a single peace to them.

But their luck, had they any in the first place, was vanquished.

__

Jedi don't believe in luck.

And I should be grateful for what I have.

Shallowly consoled, he continued. "On the, um, the mission to Tri'bla IV?"

"Four months ago?" Obi-Wan struggled to sit up. "But--four months ago we weren't on a mission. We've never even _been _to…" He shook his head in weak exasperation.

"Yes we have, Master. You just…You just can't remember it." His teeth bit down again--harder--on the inner wall of his mouth. "Or anything that's happened in the past year."

Obi-Wan didn't move, but his eyes bore into Anakin's, twin pools of murky disbelief. "What are you talking about?"

Anakin held his hand firmly. "About a year ago, something happened--something happened to your brain. There was no way of knowing for a long time. It was so gradual, and there weren't any physical indications." He looked away from Obi-Wan, and remembered words he had rehearsed during his silent vigil. _But how do you explain something like this? _"He coughed. "The oxygen was being deprived from your brain, so it started to affect your thought process."

"My thought process?"

Anakin suppressed a wince. There was a pale shaft of dread over his Master's visage, leaving his voice fragile and the fingers he gripped cold. "You were withdrawing from…me. You would go far-away, you looked distant, so often, and it was dangerous for you t-to even spar. You weren't sleeping.

"But when I asked you if you were okay, you told me you were fine. I believed you." Anakin sighed. "For a long time, I believed you. It wasn't until, " Fragments of the shattered mug, the drips of blood, surfaced sharply in his mind, "I woke up in the middle of the night and found you…" He pressed his hand to his forehead. "Holding a broken cup, with pieces all over the floor….and blood on you. You were completely dazed and you didn't seem to register what was going on. Then all of a sudden you snapped out of it. And you thought _I _was being irrational."

Obi-Wan flinched. "I'm sorry."

"It's alright." Anakin murmured. "It wasn't your fault. It was just that--nobody understood why you were acting that way. It was like someone had taken over your body. But it was still _you_, and that made it worse…Especially when you started to say those things…'

"What things?"

__

I have to tell him. I have to tell him at least this much. "You were convinced that…um…you were convinced that Master Qui-Gon was alive."

Obi-Wan's eyes closed as an ache, to which he was well-accustomed, filled his heart. _Oh gods. _

Anakin pressed a hand to his shoulder. "You thought the Jedi were hiding him from you. You didn't trust anyone. Not Bant. Not me. And then," He gingerly touched Obi-Wan's head, "You thought that maybe he would recognize you if you cut your hair."

Obi-Wan clutched at the jagged tufts, a radical difference from the shoulder-length strands he remembered. "Like a Padawan?"

Anakin nodded. "By that time, you didn't have any control. I tried to help you…but it didn't work that way. We fought each other…feet and fists…until Bant stopped us. You were in the healers for awhile, but then you broke out. You thought Master Qui-Gon would be in the Fountains and when I found you…" _I can't just tell him this…How can I sit here and tell him that he tried to hurt me--again? _"You collapsed. That was when they brought in the specialist, and he determined what was wrong with you. After the surgery, you were sleeping for a few days. And Bant told me you wouldn't remember." Anakin took a breath. "You don't remember at all, do you?"

"No, Ani." Obi-Wan replied. 

__

That's how it should be. "You look tired." Anakin pulled the blankets up to his chest. "I shouldn't have told you so much all at once."

Obi-Wan's head rested on the pillow. Against his will, his eyelids were drooping. It had passed slowly, with his apprentice's compassionate narration, but as he detached from himself, it became more of a blur. _I had no control…What did I do? _

Anakin moved to leave, but Obi-Wan feebly grabbed his hand. "Don't go."

The boy looked surprised. He sat back down, blinking back the gathering tears. "I won't. "

__

"The journey can be beautiful, my apprentice. If you allow the beat, one day you'll hear its music. The beat isn't in your hands."

Obi-Wan shot up. The room was dark, and a strip of moonlight cast a yellow haze over his face. He blinked, swallowing gulps of air, his lips pressing down hard as he did so. 

Once he realized where he was, his strict, almost frenzied, posture eased. He glanced beside the bed, where Anakin was sleeping, his head leaning back against the chair. 

A touch of a smile whisked across his mouth. In darkness, it was relieving to awake to something other than loneliness. Even if he couldn't speak to his slumbering student, it was enough to see him, to feel his presence radiating like the warm, coruscating echoes of light that wreathed the suns, the glow surrounding the moon. 

Obi-Wan looked down at his wrists. The tubes had been removed; tiny translucent bandages were smoothed over the wounds. A draft stirred above him, and the memory of his cropped hair was refreshed.

"I thought he was alive." He whispered, running his fingers through the uneven spikes.. It was outlandish, ridiculous--a crazy notion desirable enough to believe, if the mind was willing. 

Surely his heart had been ready to accept it. 

Obi-Wan curled his fingers around the hospital blanket. _I must've been a mess. _He gazed again at Anakin. _And he witnessed it all. We fought--I HURT him--and he'll always remember. I searched for a.. dead man, a man he loved too…_

His chest was bound up with the agony. He sealed his eyes and shook his head. 

__

Gods what have I done?

The night, and the absence of memory, provided him no answers. Only the phantom of fear , at his ear, at his shoulder. Taunting him with all the ambiguity. He didn't know the bad he had committed, he missed countless moments of teaching his apprentice, weaving the new bead into the braid, applauding when a difficult saber technique was mastered. It was a gray cloud above him, neither dark nor pure, without rain--without light. 

And worse, it seemed he was not yet cured of his hallucinations. Never in his life had he heard his Master utter words of a beautiful journey, but now they were resounding in his head, marked by the dignified accent Qui-Gon Jinn once possessed. 

"You're gone, my Master. And I tried to make myself, and Anakin, believe you weren't." Naboo's dust had been unsettled, and there was no doubt in Obi-Wan that grains were stinging his apprentice's eyes.

"I'm sorry, Ani." It wasn't often he called the boy by his nickname. Though they were more familiar with each other than anyone else in the Universe, it had always sounded awkward when he spoke it. Shmi had called him that, he could assume, for so had Qui-Gon, the Queen…Everyone Anakin had loved. Everyone the child had lost. There were other endearments he used, but hardly ever 'Ani'.

Obi-Wan was the intruder, the stranger who never stepped foot into the Skywalker home or spoke to the boy without professional warrant. A hasty replacement for the man who had cared for 'Ani' with ease. 

He understood now, quite suddenly, that maybe his hesitance had cost Anakin. "I'm sorry for anything that hurt you."

"Master?"

Obi-Wan's face flushed. Anakin sat up, blinking in the dark, attempting to focus his eyes. "Master, are you alright? Should I go get Bant--"

"I'm fine, Ani."

"Oh." The Padawan apparently did not fully agree; he stayed close to the bed, Obi-Wan under his worried appraisal.

Obi-Wan smiled. "I said I'm fine. Just a case of insomnia." He paused. "I've been thinking. 

"And I need to tell you something." 

Anakin was admittedly curious; it had been a long time since he had a conversation with his lucid, healthy Master. He longed for the interaction. But the shadows under Obi-Wan's eyes redirected his interests. "Couldn't it wait until morning? You must be tired."

"I think you've had to wait long enough." Obi-Wan whispered knowingly. He gathered a breath. "I don't know all that happened while I was ill, but from what you've told me, I caused harm to you. The fact that it was involuntary does not erase the pain caused." The Knight was forced to pause and pull from his limited reserve of energy in order to continue. He inhaled again. "I wasn't just touching on a…delicate subject, I was throwing it in your face."

In the set of blue-gray eyes, Anakin saw the wash of sorrow, an agony of shame, not unlike what he had witnessed on the crumbling ledge. "Master--"

"I know this was no one's fault. But I still feel the need to apologize. You were on your own for far too long, and were made to deal with the effects of my disease solitarily. I wasn't able to fulfill my duties as a Master, and you suffered because of that."

"You suffered too." Anakin added.

"From what I've been told." Obi-Wan's smile was bittersweet. "But you'll remember it in a way I never will. " He laid his palm over Anakin's hand, and with his free fingers touched a bruise that purpled the top of the Padawan's cheekbone. When he tried to speak, he was almost silenced by a sob that lumped in his throat. "I'll do whatever I can to make up for it. Not just for…the wrong that was done, but the good times, too. " 

Obi-Wan gripped Anakin's hand and forced himself to look the boy in the eye, when he would much rather have shut his own. "We can take a sabbatical, go to the Reserve, o-or go to those races you're always talking about…"

"Master," Anakin gingerly pushed him back against the pillows. "It's alright. It's enough that you're here." He smiled, but with restraint, afraid his strength would collapse--and the weak walls around his emotions would shatter. "It's…It's enough that I didn't lose you."

Obi-Wan's voice was fainter. "If there's anything more you want to tell me, anything else you want me to know…"

The moment stretched out, like a gleaming thread, reflecting the past few days against its surface. Anakin felt as though his hands were at the edges, and his next words would mean the difference between a break in the fibers--or the eternal binding of himself, and his Master, to the nightmare. 

His fists were tight around the ends. "After you collapsed, you retreated somewhere in your mind. A place where the specialist, and not even Bant, could reach." Anakin grit his teeth, and looked at his Master, who was waiting for him to continue, anticipating the next weight on his burdened conscience. The youth's chest welled with a love that shoved away his desire for honesty… while planting remnants of resentment deep beneath the surface. He smiled. "But I found you. You were very sick by then, and you didn't want to come back with me, but in the end, you did. "

Obi-Wan's eyes looked fever-bright in the moonlight. "What did you do?" He whispered.

"I told you how much I cared about you. And you told me." Anakin rested his hand on the warm cheek. "That's all. 

"Now go back to sleep. Or I _will _get Bant, and you'll be in here about a week longer than you need to be."

Obi-Wan chuckled. "I believe it."

It wasn't long before he drifted off, and Anakin sat back, the string severed.

But it wasn't gone.

__

Three days passed with Obi-Wan slowly regaining his body's usual power. When he wasn't resting, 

Anakin described various missions and training sessions that occurred in the lost year. 

On the fourth morning, Obi-Wan woke in unison with the sun His dreams were always foggy and without focus, but he could always remember the same niggling words when he rose: _"The journey can be beautiful, my apprentice. If you allow the beat, one day you'll hear its music. The beat isn't in your hands."_

And suddenly, he understood what he needed to do. He swung his legs over the side of the cot and slipped on a thin, white hospital robe. 

Anakin was roused by the rustling and frowned, lifting his chin from his fist. "Master, do you need some help?"

Obi-Wan had yet to stand, and a rush went through his head. He blinked. "Come with me, Padawan."

Anakin walked over quickly. He wove their arms, to keep the Knight steady. "Where?"

"Don't question your sickly Master." Obi-Wan admonished with a dry smile. "Just come on."

__

The Gardens were quiet around daybreak, and their steps softly echoed. A mixture of sweet fragrances perfumed the air.

Anakin glanced at Obi-Wan. "Do you want to sit down? There a bench over--"

"No. We'll only be here a moment."

Anakin was led down the cobblestone path at a gradual pace, until they came to a flourish of white blooms. 

Obi-Wan crouched to pluck one. His face was bereft of its previous humor. Anakin helped him stand, and supported him lightly as they made their way out again.

__

Anakin stood at the doorway. "I'll wait here if you want me to, Master. I know…you've never been here before."

Obi-Wan stepped inside the Room of Memorial, and held out his hand. "Neither have you. Perhaps it's time we change that."

Anakin looked down at the flower, clutched in his Master's shaking fingers. 

"I wanted you to believe he was still here." Obi-Wan murmured. Tears ran unheeded from his eyes. "But if that were so, he would have brought me this." He ran his thumb along the verdant stem. 

"He was worried for you, Master. Just as much as I was. He--He talked to us both."

"Then I…" The older Jedi swallowed. "I should thank him. _We _should thank him."

After a few seconds, Anakin accepted the hand, and together, they bent at the tomb of their shared Master. 

__

What is done

Has been done for the best

Though the mist in my eyes might suggest

Just a little confusion 

About what I'd lose

But if I started over

I know I would choose

The same joy 

The same sadness

Each step of the way

That fought me and taught me

That friends never say

Goodbye. --** Hans Zimmer/Gavin Greenaway**

__

The End. 


End file.
